VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS 



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which plead the cause 

Of those dumb mouths that have no speech 

Longfellow 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 1 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS 



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SCHOOLS AND PRIVATE READING 



BY / 

ABRAHAM FIRTH 

SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION 



— which "plead the cause 
Of those dumb mouths that have no speech ' 

Longfellow 
And I am recompensed, and deem the toils 
Of poetry not lost, if verse of mine 
May stand between an animal and woe, 
And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge 

COWPER 




13 J 



BOSTON 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 

(£fce ftiuerjji&e #«$£, Camfcri&ge 

1883 






Copyright, 1883, 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Houghton & Co. 



PREFACE. 



The compiler of this little book has often heard in- 
quiries by teachers of schools, for selections suitable for 
reading and recitations by their scholars, in which the 
duty of kindness to animals should be distinctly taught. 

To meet such calls, three successive pamphlets were 
published, and a fourth consisting of selections from 
the Poems of Mr. Longfellow. All were received with 
marked favor by the teachers to whom they became 
known. 

This led to their collection afterwards in one volume 
for private circulation, and now the volume is re- 
published for public sale, with a few omissions and ad- 
ditions. 

All who desire our children to be awakened in their 
schools to the claims of the humbler creatures are invited 
to see that copies are put in school libraries, that they 
may be within the reach of all teachers. And this, not 
for the sake of the creatures only. 

As Pope has said, " Nothing stands alone ; the chain 
holds on, and where it ends, unknown." 

Many readers may be surprised to find how many of 
the great poets have been touched by the sufferings of 



iv PREFACE. 

the " innocent animals," and how loftily they have 
pleaded their cause. 

The poems in the collection are not all complete, be- 
cause of their length in some cases, and, in others, be- 
cause a part only of each was suited to the end in view. 
A very few, however, like " Geist's Grave " and " Don," 
could not be divided satisfactorily. 

To all who have aided in this humble undertaking, 
heartiest thanks are given, and especially to its publish- 
ers who have accorded to it their coveted approval and 
the benefit of their large facilities for making the volume 
widely known. 

May the lessons of kindness and dependence here 
taught with so much poetical beauty and with such 
mingled justice, pathos and humor, find a permanent 
lodgment in the hearts of all who may read them ! 

A. F. 

Boston, Mass., U. S. A., June,' 1883. 



CONTENTS BY TITLES. 



PAGE 

Introduction ix 

A Prayer 13 

He Prayeth Best 13 

Our Morality on Trial .... 14 

Sympathy 15 

Mercy 15 

Results and Duties of Man's Su- 
premacy 16 

Justice to the Brute Creation . . 17 

Can they Suffer ? 18 

Growth of Humane Ideas ... 19 

Moral Lessons 19 

Duty to Animals not long recog- 
nized 20 

Natural Rights 21 

"Dumb" 22 

Upward 23 

Care for the Lowest 23 

Trust 24 

Say Not 24 

See, through this Air 25 

The Right must win 26 

Animated Nature 27 

Animal Happiness 27 

No Grain of Sand 28 

Humanity, Mercy, and Benevo- 
lence 29 

Living Creatures 29 

Nothing Alone 29 

Man's Rule 30 

Dumb Souls 30 

Virtue 31 

Little by Little 31 

Loyalty 32 

Animals and Human Speech . . "32 

Pity 33 

Learn from the Creatures ... 34 

Pain to Animals 35 

"What might have been .... 35 

Village Sounds 36 

Buddhism 36 

Old Hindoo 38 

Truth 38 

Our Pets 38 

Egyptian Ritual 39 

Brotherhood 39 

A Birthday Address 40 



PAGE 

Suffering 41 

To Lydia Maria Child .... 41 

Vivisection 41 

Nobility 42 

Acts of Mercy 42 

The Good Samaritan 43 

Love 44 

Children at School , 44 

Membership of the Church ... 44 

Feeling for Animals 45 

Heroic 45 

Effect of Cruelty 46 

Aspiration .46 

The Poor Beetle 47 

The Consummation 47 

Persevere 47 

A Vision 48 

Speak Gently 49 

Questions 49 

Heroes 50 

For the Sake of the Innocent Ani- 
mals 50 

Ring Out 52 

Fame and Duty 52 

No Ceremony 53 

True Leaders 53 

Be kind to Dumb Creatures . . 54 

Action 55 

" In Him we Live " 55 

Firm and Faithful 56 

Heart Service 56 

Exulting Sings 57 

In Holy Books 57 

The Bell of Atri ...... 58 

Among the Noblest 62 

The Fallen Horse 63 

The Horse 64 

The Birth of the Horse .... 64 

To his Horse 65 

Sympathy for Horse and Hound . 66 

The Blood Horse 66 

The Cid and Bavieca 67 

The King of Denmark's Ride . . 69 

Do you know 71 

The Bedouin's Rebuke .... 72 
From " The Lord of Butrago " . 73 
"Bay Billy" 74 



CONTENTS BY TITLES. 



PAGE 

The Ride of Collins Graves ... 77 

Paul Revere's Ride 78 

Sheridan's Ride 80 

Good News to Aix 82 

Dying in Harness 84 

Plutarch's Humanity 85 

The Horses of Achilles .... 86 

The War Horse 87 

Pegasus in Pound 87 

The Horse 89 

Prom "The Foray" 90 

On Landseer's Picture, "Waiting 

for Master " 90 

The Waterfowl 91 

Sea Fowl 92 

The Sandpiper 93 

The Birds of Killingworth ... 94 

The Magpie 99 

The Mocking-Bird 101 

Early Songs and Sounds .... 102 

The Sparrow's Note 102 

The Glow- Worm 102 

St. Francis to the Birds .... 103 
Wordsworth's Skylark .... 104 

Shelley's Skylark 105 

Hogg's Skylark 106 

The Sweet-Voiced Quire .... 107 
A Caged Lark ....... 108 

The Woodlark 109 

Keats's Nightingale Ill 

Lark and Nightingale Ill 

Flight of the Birds 112 

A Child's Wish 113 

The Humming-Bird 114 

The Humming-Bird's Wedding . 115 
The Hen and the Honey-Bee . . 117 

Song of the Robin 118 

Sir Robin 119 

The Dear Old Robins 120 

Robins quit the Nest 120 

Lost— Three Little Robins ... 122 
The Terrible Scarecrow and 

Robins 123 

The Song Sparrow 124 

The Field Sparrow 125 

The Sparrow 126 

Piccola and Sparrow 127 

Little Sparrow 129 

The Swallow 129 

The Emperor's Bird's-Nest . . .130 
To a Swallow building under our 

Eaves 132 

The Swallow, the Owl, and the 
Cock's Shrill Clarion in the 

" Elegy " 133 

The Statue over the Cathedral 

Door 134 

The Bird let Loose 135 

The Brown Thrush 136 

The Golden-Crowned Thrush . . 136 

The Thrush 137 

The Aziola 138 



PAGE 

The Marten 139 

Judge You as Tou Are .... 139 

Robert of Lincoln 139 

My Doves 140 

The Doves of Venice 142 

Song of the Dove 143 

What the Quail says 143 

Chick-a-dee-dee 144 

The Linnet 145 

Hear the Woodland Linnet . . . 146 

The Parrot 147 

The Common Question .... 148 
Why not do it, Sir, To-day . . .149 

To a Redbreast 150 

Phoebe 150 

To the Stork 152 

The Storks of Delft ..... 153 

The Pheasant 154 

The Herons of Elmwood .... 155 
Walter von der Vogelweid . . . 156 
The Legend of the Cross-Bill . . 158 

Pretty Birds 158 

The Little Bird sits 159 

The Living Swan 159 

The Stormy Petrel 160 

To the Cuckoo 162 

Birds at Dawn 162 

Evening Songs 164 

Little Brown Bird 164 

Life's Sign 165 

A Bird's Ministry 165 

Of Birds 167 

Birds in Spring 167 

The Canary in his Cage .... 169 
Who stole the Bird's-Nest . . .170 

Who stole the Eggs 171 

What the Birds say 173 

The Wren's Nest 174 

On Another's Sorrow .... 175 
The Shepherd's Home .... 176 
The Wood-Pigeon's Home . . . 177 

The Shag 177 

The Lost Bird 178 

The Bird's must know .... 180 

The Bird King 181 

Shadows of Birds 181 

The Bird and the Ship . . . .182 

A Myth 184 

Cuvier on the Dog 185 

A Hindoo Legend 185 

Ulysses and Argus 188 

Tom 190 

William of Orange saved by his 

Dog 191 

The Bloodhound . . . . . .192 

Helvellyn 194 

Llewellyn and his Dog .... 195 

Looking for Pearls 198 

Rover 199 

To my Dog " Blanco " . . . . 201 
The Beggar and his Dog .... 202 
Don 204 



CONTENTS BY TITLES. 



PAGE 

Geist's Grave 20G 

On the Death of a Favorite Old 

Spaniel 210 

Epitaph in Grey Friars' Church- 
yard 211 

From an Inscription on the Monu- 
ment of a Newfoundland Dog . 211 

The Dog 212 

Johuny's Private Argument . . 212 

The Harper 214 

" Flight " 215 

The Irish Wolf-Hound .... 216 

Six Feet 216 

There 's Room enough for all . . 217 

His Faithful Dog 218 

The Faithful Hoimd 219 

The Spider's Lesson 219 

The Spider and Stork 221 

The Homestead at Evening . . . 221 
The Cattle of a Hundred Farms . 223 
Cat-Questions ....... 223 

The Newsboy's Cat 224 

The Child and her Pussv . . .225 
The Alpine Sheep . . " . . . .226 

Little Lamb 227 

Cowper's Hare 227 

Turn thy Hasty Foot aside . . .228 

The Worm turns 228 

Grasshopper and Cricket . . .229 
The Honey-Bees 230 



PAGE 

Cunning Bee 230 

An Insect 231 

The Chipmunk 232 

Mountain and Squirrel .... 233 

To a Field-Mouse 233 

A Sea-Shell 234 

The Chambered Nautilus . . . 235 

Hiawatha's Brothers 237 

Unoffending Creatures .... 239 

September 239 

The Lark 239 

The Swallow 240 

Returning Birds 240 

The Birds 240 

Thrush 241 

Linnet 241 

Nightingale 241 

Songsters 241 

Mohammedanism — The Cattle . 242 
The Spider and the Dove ... 243 

The Young Doves 244 

Forgiven 245 

Prayers 245 

Dumb Mouths 245 

The Parsees 246 

Hindoo 246 

The Tiger 247 

Value of Animals 248 

Societies for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals 250 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE BIBLE. 

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, 
behold, it was very good. — Gen. i. 31. 

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy 
God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, 
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. 
— Ex. xx. 10. 

For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle 
upon a thousand hills. 

I know all the fowls of the mountains : and the wild 
beasts of the field are mine. — Psa. 1. 10, 11. 

The Lord is good to all : and his tender mercies are 
over all his works. 

The eyes of all wait upon thee : and thou givest them 
their meat in due season. 

Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of 
every living thing. — Psa. cxlv. 9, 15, 16. 

A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast. — 
Prov. xii. 10. 

Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such 
as are appointed to destruction. — Prov. xxxi. 8. 

But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee ; and 
the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee. — Job xii. 7. 

Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go 
astray, and hide thyself from them : thou shalt in any 
case bring them again unto thy brother. And if thy 
brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, 



x INTRODUCTION. 

then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it 
shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and 
thou shalt restore it to him again. 

In like manner shalt thou do with his ass ; and so 
shalt thou do with his raiment ; and with all lost things 
of thy brother's, which he hath lost, and thou hast found, 
shalt thou do likewise : thou mayest not hide thyself. 

Thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down 
by the way, and hide thyself from them : thou shalt surely 
help him to lift them up again. — Deut. xxii. 1-4. 

Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, 
and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his 
heritage ? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he 
delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will 
have compassion upon us ; he will subdue our iniquities : 
and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the 
sea. — Mic. vii. 18, 19. 

Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her 
wings toward the south ? Doth the eagle mount up at 
thy command, and make her nest on high ? — Job xxxix. 
26, 27. 

Go to the ant, thou sluggard ; consider her ways, and 
be wise : 

Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, 

Provideth her meat in summer, and gathereth her 
food in the harvest. — Prov. vi. 6-8. 

And the Lord sent Nathan unto David. And he 
came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men 
in one city : the one was rich, and the other poor. 

The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds : 
But the poor man had nothing save one little ewe-lamb, 
which he had bought and nourished up : and it grew up 
together with him, and with his children ; it did eat of 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his 
bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. 

And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he 
spared to take of his own flock, and of his own herd, to 
dress for the wayfaring man that was come to him ; 
but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man 
that was come to him. 

And David's anger was greatly kindled against the 
man ; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the 
man that hath done this thing shall surely die. And he 
shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this 
thing, and because he had no pity. — 2 Sam. xii. 1-6. 

Praise ye the Lord from the heavens : praise him in 
the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels : praise ye 
him, all his hosts. 

Beasts and all cattle : creeping things, and flying 
fowl. — Psa. cxlviii. 1, 2, 10. 

Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow 
a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even 
thine altars, Lord of hosts, my King and my God. — 
Psa. lxxxiv. 3. 

And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, 
wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that 
cannot discern between their right hand and their left 
hand, and also much cattle ? — Jonah iv. 11. 

For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox 
that treadeth out the corn. — 1 Tim. v. 18. 

Blessed are the merciful : for they shall obtain mercy. 
Matt. v. 7. 

Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither 
do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly 
Father f eedeth them. — Matt. vi. 26. 

Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not 
one of them is forgotten before God ? — Luke xii. 6. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 



A PEAYER. 

Maker of earth and sea and sky, 
Creation's sovereign, Lord and King, 

Who hung the starry worlds on high, 
And formed alike the sparrow's wing : 

Bless the dumb creatures of thy care, 

And listen to their voiceless prayer. 

For us they toil, for us they die, 

These humble creatures Thou hast made ; 
How shall we dare their rights deny, 

On whom thy seal of love is laid ? 
Teach Thou our hearts to hear their plea, 
As Thou dost man's in prayer to Thee ! 

Emily B. Lord. 



HE PRAYETH BEST. 
O wedding guest ! this soul hath been 

Alone on a wide, wide sea : 
So lonely 't was, that God himself 

Scarce seemed there to be. 

O sweeter than the marriage feast, 
'T is sweeter far to me, 



14 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

To walk together to the kirk 
With a goodly company ! — 

To walk together to the kirk, 

And all together pray, 
While each to his great Father bends, 
Old man, and babes, and loving friends s 

And youths and maidens gay ! 

Farewell ! farewell ! but this I tell 

To thee, thou wedding guest ! 
He prayeth well, who loveth well 

Both man and bird and beast. 

He prayeth best, who loveth best 
All things both great and small ; 

For the dear God who loveth us, 
He made and loveth all. 

S. T. Coleridge. 



OUB MORALITY ON TRIAL. 
Bishop Butler affirmed that it was on the simple fact 
of a creature being sentient, i. e. capable of pain and 
pleasure, that rests our responsibility to save it pain and 
give it pleasure. There is no evading this obligation, 
then, as regards the lower animals, by the plea that they 
are not moral beings ; it is our morality, not thews, 
which is in question. Miss F. P. Cobbe. 



" Never," said my aunt, " be mean in anything ; never 
be false, never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, 
Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you." 

C. Dickens, in David Copper field. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 15 

SYMPATHY. 
Wherefore it is evident that even the ordinary ex- 
ercise of this faculty of sympathy implies a condition 
of the whole moral being in some measure right and 
healthy, and that to the entire exercise of it there is 
necessary the entire perfection of the Christian char- 
acter, for he who loves not God, nor his brother, cannot 
love the grass beneath his feet and the creatures that fill 
those spaces in the universe which he needs not, and 
which live not for his uses ; nay, he has seldom grace 
to be grateful even to those that love and serve him, 
while, on the other hand, none can love God nor his 
human brother without loving all things which his Fa- 
ther loves, nor without looking upon them every one as 
in that respect his brethren also, and perhaps worthier 
than he, if in the under concords they have to fill their 
part is touched more truly. Kuskin. 



MERCY. 
The quality of mercy is not strained ; 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice blessed ; 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : 
'T is mightiest in the mightiest : it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown : 
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
The attribute to awe and majesty, 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. 
But mercy is above this sceptred sway : 
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings ; 
It is an attribute to God himself ; 



16 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

And earthly power doth then show likest God's 
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, . . . 
Though justice be thy plea, consider tins, — 
That, in the course of justice, none of us 
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy ; 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy. 

Shakespeare : Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Sc. 1. 



BESULTS AND DUTIES OP MAN'S SUPREMACY-. 
And in that primeval account of Creation which the 
second chapter of Genesis gives us, the first peculiar 
characteristic of the Human Being is that he assumes 
the rank of the Guardian and Master of every fowl of 
the air and every beast of the field. They gather round 
him, he names them, he classifies them, he seeks for 
companionship from them. It is the fit likeness and 
emblem of their relation to him in the course of history. 
That "earnest expectation of the creature" which the 
Apostle describes, that, " stretching forth the head " of 
the whole creation towards a brighter and better state 
as ages have rolled on, has received even here a fulfil- 
ment which in earlier times could not have been dreamed 
of. The savage animals have, before the tread of the 
Lord of Creation, gradually disappeared. Those crea- 
tures which show capacity for improvement have been 
cherished and strengthened and humanized by their in- 
tercourse with man. The wild horse has been brought 
under his protecting care, has become a faithful minis- 
tering servant, rejoicing in his master's voice, fondled 
by his master's children. The huge elephant has had 
his " half-reasoning " powers turned into the faculties of 
a gentle, benevolent giant, starting aside from his course 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 17 

to befriend a little child, listening with the docility of a 
child to his driver's rebuke or exhortation. The light, 
airy, volatile bird seems to glow with a new instinct of 
affection and of perseverance under the shelter of the 
firm hand and eye of man. The dog, in all Eastern 
nations, even under the Old Testament itself, repre- 
sented as an outcast, the emblem of all that was unclean 
and shameful, has, through the Gentile Western nations, 
been admitted within the pale of human fellowship. 
Truly, if man has thus, as it were, infused a soul into 
the dumb, lawless animals, what a community of feeling, 
what tenderness should it require from him in dealing 
with them. What a heartless, in one word, what an in- 
human spirit is implied by any cruelty towards those, 
his dependents, his followers, his grateful, innocent com- 
panions, placed under his charge by Him who is at once 
their Father and ours. Remember our common origin 
and our common infirmities. Remember that we are 
bound to feel for their hunger, their thirst, their pains, 
which they share with us, and which we, the controllers 
of their destiny, ought to alleviate by the means which 
our advancing civilization enables us to use for ourselves. 
Remember how completely each of us is a god to them, 
and, as a god, bound to them by godlike duties. 

Dean Stanley. 

JUSTICE TO THE BRUTE CREATION". 
The rights of all creatures are to be respected, but es- 
pecially of those kinds which man domesticates and sub- 
sidizes for his peculiar use. Their nearer contact with 
the human world creates a claim on our loving-kindness 
beyond what is due to more foreign and untamed tribes. 
Respect that claim. "The righteous man," says the 



18 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

proverb, " regardeth the life of his beast." Note that 
word " righteous." The proverb does not say the merci- 
ful man, but the righteous, the just. Not mercy only, 
but justice, is due to the brute. Your horse, your ox, 
your kine, your dog, are not mere chattels, but sentient 
souls. They are not your own so proper as to make your 
will the true and only measure of their lot. Beware of 
contravening their nature's law, of taxing unduly their 
nature's strength. Their powers and gifts are a sacred 
trust. The gift of the horse is his fleetness, but when 
that gift is strained to excess and put to wager for ex- 
orbitant tasks, murderous injustice is done to the beast. 
They have their rights, which every right-minded owner 
will respect. We owe them return for the service they 
yield, all needful comfort, kind usage, rest in old age, 
and an easy death. Rev. Dr. Hedge. 



CAN THEY SUFFER? 
The day may come when the rest of the animal crea- 
tion may acquire those rights which never could have 
been withheld from them but by the hand of tyranny. 
It may come one day to be recognized that the number 
of legs, or the villosity of the skin, are reasons insuffi- 
cient for abandoning a sensitive being to the caprice of 
a tormentor. What else is it that should trace the in- 
superable line ? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps 
the faculty of discourse ? But a full-grown horse or dog 
is beyond comparison a more rational as well as a more 
conversable animal than an infant of a day, a week, or 
even a month old. But suppose the case were other- 
wise, what could it avail ? The question is not " Can 
they reason? " nor "Can they speak?" but "Can they 
suffer ? " Bentham. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 19 

GROWTH OF HUMANE IDEAS. 
The disposition to raise the fallen, to befriend the 
friendless, is now one of the governing powers of the 
world. Every year its dominion widens, and even now 
a strong and growing public opinion is enlisted in its 
support. Many men still spend lives that are merely 
selfish. But such lives are already regarded with general 
disapproval. The man on whom public opinion, antici- 
pating the award of the highest tribunal, bestows its 
approbation, is the man who labors that he may leave 
other men better and happier than he found them. With 
the noblest spirits of our race this disposition to be use- 
ful grows into a passion. With an increasing number it 
is becoming at least an agreeable and interesting em- 
ployment. On the monument to John Howard in St. 
Paul's, it is said that the man who devotes himself to 
the good of mankind treads " an open but unfrequented 
path to immortality." The remark, so true of Howard's 
time, is happily not true of ours. 

Mackenzie's Nineteenth Century. 



MORAL LESSONS. 
And let us take to ourselves the moral lessons which 
these creatures preach to all who have studied and 
learned to love what I venture to call the moral in 
brutes. Look at that faithful servant, the ox ! What 
an emblem in all generations of patient, plodding, meek 
endurance and serviceable toil ! Of the horse and the 
dog, what countless anecdotes declare the generous loy- 
alty, the tireless zeal, the inalienable love ! No human 
devotion has ever surpassed the recorded examples of 



20 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

brutes in that line. The story is told of an Arab horse 
who, when his master was taken captive and bound hand 
and foot, sought him out in the dark amidst other vic- 
tims, seized him by the girdle with his teeth, ran with 
him all night at the top of his speed, conveyed him to 
his home, and then, exhausted with the effort, fell down 
and died. Did ever man evince more devoted affection ? 
Surely, something of a moral nature is present also in 
the brute creation. If nowhere else we may find it in 
the brute mother's care for her young. Through uni- 
versal nature throbs the divine pulse of the universal 
Love, and binds all being to the Father-heart of the au- 
thor and lover of all. Therefore is sympathy with ani- 
mated nature, a holy affection, an extended humanity, a 
projection of the human heart by which we live, beyond 
the precincts of the human house, into all the wards of 
the many creatured city of God, as He with his wisdom 
and love is co-present to all. Sympathy with nature is 

a part of the good man's religion. 

Rev. Dr. Hedge. 



Whenever any trait of justice, or generosity, or far- 
sighted wisdom, or wide tolerance, or compassion, or 
purity, is seen in any man or woman throughout the 
whole human race, as in the fragments of a broken 
mirror we see the reflection of the Divine image. 

Dean Stanley. 



DUTY TO ANIMALS NOT LONG RECOGNIZED. 

It is not, however, to be reckoned as surprising, that 
our forefathers did not drsam of such a thing as Duty 
to Animals. They learned very slowly that they owed 
duties to men of other races than their own. Only in 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 21 

the generation which recognized thoroughly for the first 
time that the negro was a man and brother, did it 
dawn that beyond the negro there were other still hum- 
bler claimants for benevolence and justice. Within a 
few years, passed both the Emancipation of the West 
Indian slaves and the first act for Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals, of which Lord Erskine so truly prophesied 
that it would prove not only an honor to the Parliament 
of England, but an era in the civilization of the world. 

Miss F. P. Cobbe. 



NATURAL RIGHTS. 

But what is needed for the present is due regard for 
the natural rights of animals, due sense of the fact that 
they are not created for man's pleasure and behoof 
alone, but have, independent of him, their own meaning 
and place in the universal order ; that the God who 
gave them being, who out of the manifoldness of his 
creative thought let them pass into life, has not cast them 
off, but is with them, in them, still. A portion of his 
Spirit, though unconscious and unreflecting, is theirs. 
What else but the Spirit of God could guide the crane 
and the stork across pathless seas to their winter re- 
treats, and back again to their summer haunts ? What 
else could reveal to the petrel the coming storm ? What 
but the Spirit of God could so geometrize the wondrous 
architecture of the spider and the bee, or hang the hill- 
star's nest in the air, or sling the hammock of the tiger- 
moth, or curve the ramparts of the beaver's fort, and 
build the myriad " homes without hands "* in which fish, 
bird, and insect make their abode ? The Spirit of God 
is with them as with us, — consciously with us, un- 
consciously with them. We are not divided, but one in 



22 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

his care and love. They have their mansions in the 
Father's house, and we have ours ; but the house is one, 
and the Master and keeper is one for us and them. 

Rev. Dr. Hedge. 

" DUMB." 

I can hardly express to you how much I feel there 
is to be thought of, arising from the word " dumb " 
applied to animals. Dumb animals ! What an im- 
mense exhortation that is to pity. It is a remarkable 
thing that this word dumb should have been so largely 
applied to animals, for, in reality, there are very few 
dumb animals. But, doubtless, the word is often used 
to convey a larger idea than that of dumbness ; namely, 
the want of power in animals to convey by sound to 
mankind what they feel, or, perhaps, I should rather 
say, the want of power in men to understand the mean- 
ing of the various sounds uttered by animals. But as 
regards those animals which are mostly dumb, such as 
the horse, which, except on rare occasions of extreme 
suffering, makes no sound at all, but only expresses pain 
by certain movements indicating pain — how tender we 
ought to be of them, and how observant of these move- 
ments, considering their dumbness. The human baby 
guides and governs us by its cries. In fact, it will 
nearly rule a household by these cries, and woe would 
betide it, if it had not this power of making its afflic- 
tions known. It is a sad thing to reflect upon, that the 
animal which has the most to endure from man is the 
one which has the least powers of protesting by noise 
against any of his evil treatment. 

Arthur Helps. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 23 

UPWARD. 
His parent hand 
From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore, 
To men, to angels, to celestial minds, 
Forever leads the generations on 
To higher scenes of being ; while supplied 
From day to day with His enlivening breath, 
Inferior orders in succession rise 

To fill the void below. 

Akenside : Pleasures of Imagination. 



CARE FOR THE LOWEST. 
I would not enter on my list of friends 
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, 
Yet wanting sensibility) the man 
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 
An inadvertent step may crush the snail 
That crawls at evening in the public path ; 
But he that has humanity, forewarned, 
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. 
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, 
And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes, 
A visitor unwelcome, into scenes 
Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, 
The chamber, or refectory, may die : 
A necessary act incurs no blame. 
Not so when, held within their proper bounds, 
And guiltless of offence, they range the air, 
Or take their pastime in the spacious field : 
There they are privileged ; and he that hunts 
Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong, 



24 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Disturbs the economy of nature's realm, 

Who, when she formed, designed them an abode. 

The sum is this : If man's convenience, health, 

Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims 

Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs. 

Else they are all — the meanest things that are — 

As free to live, and to enjoy that life, 

As God was free to form them at the first, 

Who in his sovereign wisdom made them all. 

Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons 

To love it too. Cowper. 



TRUST. 

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill, 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 

Defects of doubt and taints of blood ; 

That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 

That not one life shall be destroyed? 

Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
When God hath made the pile complete ; 

That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire, 

Or but subserves another's gain. 



Tennyson. 



SAY NOT. 
Say not, the struggle naught availeth, 

The labor and the wounds are vain, 
The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 

And as things have been they remain. 



VOICES FOR TEE SPEECHLESS. 25 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars ; 

It may be, in yon smoke concealed, 
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, 

And, but for you, possess the field. 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, 

Seem here no painful inch to gain, 
Far back, through creeks and inlets making, 

Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

And not by eastern windows only, 

When daylight comes, comes in the light ; 

In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly ! 
But westward, look, the land is bright. 

A. II. Clough. 



SEE, THROUGH THIS AIR. 
See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, 
All matter quick, and bursting into birth. 
Above, how high progressive life may go ! 
Around, how wide ! how deep extend below ! 
Vast chain of being ! which from God began, 
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, 
Beast, bird, fish, insect, which no eye can see, 
No glass can reach ; from infinite to thee ; 
From thee to nothing. On superior powers 
Were we to press, inferior might on ours ; 
Or in the full creation leave a void, 
Where, one step broken, the great scale 's destroyed 
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, 
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. 
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul ; 
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, 



26 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame ; 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; 
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; 
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, 
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns : 
To Him no high, no low, no great, no small ; 
He fills, He bounds, connects, and equals all. 



THE RIGHT MUST WIN. 
Oh, it is hard to wor,k for God, 

To rise and take his part 
Upon this battle-field of earth, 

And not sometimes lose heart ! 

Ill masters good ; good seems to change 

To ill with greatest ease ; 
And, worst of all, the good with good 

Is at cross purposes. 

It is not so, but so it looks ; 

And we lose courage then ; 
And doubts will come if God hath kept 

His promises to men. 

Workman of God ! Oh lose not heart, 
But learn what God is like ; 

And in the darkest battle-field 
Thou shalt know where to strike. 



Pope. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 27 

For right is right, since God is God ; 

And right the day must win ; 

To doubt would be disloyalty, 

To falter would be sin ! 

Faber. 



ANIMATED NATURE. 
Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds, 
But animated nature sweeter still 
To soothe and satisfy the human ear. 
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one 
The livelong night : nor these alone whose notes 
Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain ; 
But coying rooks, and kites that swim sublime 
In still repeated circles, screaming loud, 
The jay, the pie, and ev'n the boding owl 
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me. 
Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, 
Yet heard in scenes where peace forever reigns, 
And only there, please highly for their sake. 

Cowpek. 

■ — * — 

ANIMAL HAPPINESS. 

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit 

For human fellowship, as being void 

Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike 

To love and friendship both, that is not pleased 

With sight of animals enjoying life, 

Nor feels their happiness augment his own. 

The bounding fawn that darts along the glade 

When none pursues, through mere delight of heart, 

And spirits buoyant with excess of glee ; 

The horse as wanton, and almost as fleet, 



28 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

That skips the spacious meadow at full speed, 

Then stops, and snorts, and throwing high his heels, 

Starts to the voluntary race again ; 

The very kine that gambol at high noon, 

The total herd receiving first from one 

That leads the dance a summons to be gay, 

Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth 

Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent 

To give such act and utterance as they may 

To ecstasy too big to be suppressed — 

These and a thousand images of bliss, 

With which kind Nature graces every scene, 

Where cruel man defeats not her design, 

Impart to the benevolent, who wish 

All that are capable of pleasure pleased, 

A far superior happiness to theirs, 

The comfort of a reasonable joy. 

Cowper. 



NO GRAIN OF SAND. 
The very meanest things are made supreme 

With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand 

But moves a bright and million-peopled land, 
And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem. 
For love, though blind himself, a curious eye 

Hath lent me, to behold the heart of things, 
And touched mine ear with power. Thus, far or nigh, 

Minute or mighty, fixed or free with wings, 
Delight, from many a nameless covert sly, 

Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings. 

Laman Blanchard. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 29 

HUMANITY, MERCY, AND BENEVOLENCE. 
When that great and far-reaching softener of hearts, 
the sense of our failures and offences, is vividly present, 
the position we hold to creatures who have never done 
wrong is always found inexpressibly touching. To be 
kind to them, and rejoice in their happiness, seems just 
one of the few ways in which we can act a godlike 
part in our little sphere, and display the mercy for which 
we hope in turn. The only befitting feeling for human 
beings to entertain toward brutes is — as the very word 
suggests — the feeling of Humanity ; or, as we may 
interpret it, the sentiment of sympathy, as far as we can 
cultivate fellow feeling ; of Pity so far so we know them 
to suffer ; of Mercy so far as we can spare their suffer- 
ings ; of Kindness and Benevolence, so far as it is in 

our power to make them happy. 

Miss F. P. Cobbe. 



LIVING CREATURES. 
What call'st thou solitude ? Is mother earth 
With various living creatures, and the air 
Replenished, and all these at thy command 
To come and play before thee ? Know'st thou not 
Their language and their ways ? They also know, 
And reason not contemptibly ; with these 
Find pastime, and bear rule ; thy realm is large. 

Paradise Lost, bk. 8 

NOTHING ALONE. 
One all-extending, all-preserving Soul 
Connects each being, greatest with the least ; 
Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast ; 



30 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

All served, all serving : nothing stands alone : 
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown. 

Pope. 



MAN'S RULE. 
Thou gavest me wide nature for my kingdom, 
And power to feel it, to enjoy it. Not 
Cold gaze of wonder gav'st thou me alone, 
But even into her bosom's dej3th to look, 
As it might be the bosom of a friend ; 
The grand array of living things thou madest 
To pass before me, mak'st me know my brothers 
In silent bush, in water, and in air. 

Blackies Translation of Goethe's Faust. 



DUMB SOULS. 
Even the she-wolf with young, on rapine bent, 
He caught and tethered in his mat-walled tent, 
And cherished all her little sharp-nosed young, „ 
Till the small race with hope and terror clung 
About his footsteps, till each new-reared brood, 
Remoter from the memories of the wood 
More glad discerned their common home with man. 

This was the work of Jubal : he began 
The pastoral life, and, sire of joys to be, 
Spread the sweet ties that bind the family 
O'er dear dumb souls that thrilled at man's caress, 
And shared his pain with patient helpfulness. 

George Eliot : Legend of Jubal. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 31 

Nor must we childishly feel contempt for the study of 
the lower animals, since in all nature's work there is 
something wonderful. And if any one thinks the study 
of other animals despicable, he must despise the study of 
his own nature. Aristotle. 



VIRTUE. 
Thus born alike, from virtue first began 
The difT'rence that distinguished man from man : 
He claimed no title from descent of blood ; 
But that which made him noble made him good. 

Drtden. 
— ♦— 

LITTLE BY LITTLE. 
Little by little the time goes by — 
Short if you sing through it, long if you sigh. 
Little by little — an hour, a day, 
Gone with the years that have vanished away ; 
Little by little the race is run, 
Trouble and waiting and toil are done ! 

Little by little the skies grow clear ; 
Little by little the sun comes near ; 
Little by little the days smile out 
Gladder and brighter on pain and doubt ; 
Littfe by little the seed we sow 
Into a beautiful yield will grow. 

Little by little the world grows strong, 
Fighting the battle of Right and Wrong : 
Little by little the Wrong gives way, 
Little by little the Right has sway ; 



32 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Little by little all longing souls 
Struggle up nearer the shining goals ! 

Little by little the good in men 
Blossoms to beauty for human ken ; 
Little by little the angels see 
Prophecies better of good to be ; 
Little by little the God of all 
Lifts the world nearer the pleading call. 

Cincinnati Humane Appeal. 



LOYALTY. 
Life may be given in many ways 
And loyalty to truth be sealed 
As bravely in the closet as the field, 

So generous is fate ; 
But then to stand beside her, 
When craven churls deride her, 
To front a lie in arms, and. not to yield, 
This shows, methinks, God's plan 
And measure of a stalwart man, 
Limbed like the old heroic breeds, 
Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, 
Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, 
Fed from within with all the strength he needs. 

J. E,. Lowell. 



ANIMALS AND HUMAN SPEECH. 
Animals have much more capacity to understand 
human speech than is generally supposed. The Hindoos 
invariably talk to their elephants, and it is amazing how 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 33 

much the latter comprehend. The Arabs govern their 
camels with a few cries, and my associates in the African 
desert were always amused whenever I adressed a re- 
mark to the big dromedary who was my property for 
two months ; yet at the end of that time the beast evi- 
dently knew the meaning of a number of simple sen- 
tences. Some years ago, . seeing the hippopotamus in 
Barnum's museum looking very stolid and dejected, I 
spoke to him in English, but he did not even open his 
eyes. Then I went to the opposite corner of the cage, 
and said in Arabic, " I know you ; come here to me." 
He instantly turned his head toward me ; I repeated the 
words, and thereupon he came to the corner where I 
was standing, pressed his huge, ungainly head against 
the bars of the cage, and looked in my face with a touch 
of delight while I stroked his muzzle. I have two or 
three times found a lion who recognized the same lan- 
guage, and the expression of his eyes, for an instant, 
seemed positively human. Bayard Taylor. 



PITY, 
And I, contented with a humble theme, 
Have poured my stream of panegyric down 
The vale of Nature, where it creeps and winds 
Among her lovely works, with a secure 
And unambitious course, reflecting clear 
If not the virtues, yet the worth, of brutes. 
And I am recompensed, and deem the toils 
Of poetry not lost, if verse of mine 
May stand between an animal and woe, 
And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge. 

Cowper. 
3 



34 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

liEARN FROM THE CREATURES. 
See him from Nature, rising slow to Art ! 
To copy Instinct, that was Reason's part ; 
Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake : — 
" Go, from the creatures thy instructions take ; 
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield ; 
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field ; 
Thy arts of building from the bee receive ; 
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave ; 
Learn of the little nautilus to sail, 
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. 
Here, too, all forms of social union find, 
And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind : 
Here subterranean works and cities see; 
There towns aerial on the waving tree. 
Learn each small people's genius, policies, 
The Ant's republic, and the realm of Bees : 
How those in common all their wealth bestow, 
And Anarchy without confusion know ; 
And these forever, though a monarch reign, 
Their sep'rate cells and properties maintain. 
Mark what unvaryed laws preserve each state, 
Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate. 
In fine, thy Reason finer webs shall draw, 
Entangle Justice in her net of Law, 
And Right, too rigid, harden into Wrong ; 
Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong. 
Yet go ! and thus o'er all the creatures sway, 
Thus let the wiser make the rest obey ; 
And, for those Arts mere Instinct could afford, 
Be crowned as Monarchs, or as God adored." 

Pope. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 35 

PAIN TO ANIMALS. 
Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals 
than it gives pleasure to man ; is that practice moral or 
immoral ? And if exactly in proportion as human be- 
ings raise their heads out of the slough of selfishness, 
they do not answer " immoral," let the morality of the 
principle of utility be forever condemned. 

John Stuart Mill. 



WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 
It might have been that the sky was green, and the 

grass serenely blue ; 
It might have been that grapes on thorns and figs on 

thistles grew ; 
It might have been that rainbows gleamed before the 

showers came ; 
It might have been that lambs were fierce and bears and 

tigers tame ; 
It might have been that cold would melt and summer 

heat would freeze ; 
It might have been that ships at sea would sail against 

the breeze — 
And there may be worlds unknown, dear, where we 

would find the change 
From all that we have seen or heard, to others just as 

strange - — 
But it never could be wise, dear, in haste to act or 

speak ; 
It never could be noble to harm the poor and weak ; 
It never could be kind, dear, to give a needless pain ; 
It never could be honest, dear, to sin for greed or gain j 



36 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

And there could not be a world, dear, while God is true 

above, 
Where right and wrong were governed by any law but 

love. Kate Lawrence. 



VILLAGE SOUNDS. 

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close, 
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose ; 
There as I passed with careless steps and slow, 
The mingling notes came softening from below ; 
The swain responsive to the milkmaid sung : 
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young ; 
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool : 
The playful children just let loose from school ; 
The ivatch-dog's voice that bayed the ivhisjieriiig ivind, 
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind, — 
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade. 
And filled each pause the nightingale had made. 

GOLDS3IITH. 



BUDDHISM. 
The Buddhist duty of universal love enfolds in its em- 
braces not only the brethren and sisters of the new faith, 
not only our neighbors, but every thing that has life. 

T. W. Rhys Davids. 



As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects 
her son, her only son, so let a man cultivate good-ivill 
without measure toward all beings. Let him cultivate 
good-will without measure, unhindered love and friend- 
liness toward the whole world, above, below, around. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 37 

Standing, walking, sitting, or lying, let him be firm in 
this mind so long as he is awake : this state of heart, 
they say, is the best in the world- Metta Sutta. 



He who lives pure in thought, free from malice, con- 
tented, leading a holy life, feeling tenderly for all 
creatures, speaking wisely and kindly, humbly and sin- 
cerely, has the Deity ever in his breast. The Eternal 
makes not his abode within the breast of that man who 
covets another's wealth, who injures living creatures^ 
who is proud of his iniquity, whose mind is evil. 

Dhammapada. 

FROM THE ASOKA INSCRIPTIONS. 

The discontinuance of the murder of human beings 
and of cruelty to animals, respect for parents, obedience 
to father and mother, obedience to holy elders, these are 
good deeds. — No. IV. 

And now the joyful chorus resounds again and again 
that henceforward not a single animal shall be put to 
death. —No. V. 

In a summary of the inscriptions by Arthur Lillie, in 
" Buddhism and Early Buddhism," he says, they require 
also, for the benefit of both beast and men, "that 
gardens be cultivated everywhere of healing shrubs and 
herbs." 

[The inscriptions were written on "rocks, temples, and 
monuments " in India for the instruction of the people, 
by order of the Emperor Asoka, who lived about 250 
years before Christ.] 



38 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 



OLD HINDOO. 

God is within this universe, and yet outside this uni- 
verse ; whoever beholds all living creatures as in Him, 
and Him the universal Spirit, as in all, henceforth re- 
gards no creature with contempt. 

Quoted by Rev. J. E. Carpenter. 



TRUTH. 
It fortifies my soul to know 

That though I perish, truth is so, 
That howsoe'er I stray and range, 

Whate'er I do, thou dost not change» 
I steadier step when I recall 

That, if I slip, thou dost not fall. 

Arthur Hugh Clotjgh. 



OUE PETS. 
We, dying, fondly hope the life immortal 

To win at last ; 
Yet all that live must through death's dreary portal 

At length have passed. 

And from the hope which shines so bright above us, 

My spirit turns, 
And for the lowlier ones, that serve and love us, 

Half sadly yearns. 

Never a bird its glad way safely winging 
Through those blest skies ? 

Never, through pauses in the joyful singing, 
Its notes to rise ? 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 39 

Not one of those who toil's severest burdens 

So meekly bear, 
To find at last of faithful labor's guerdons 

An humble share ? 

Ah, well ! I need not question ; gladly rather, 

I '11 trust in all — 
Assured that not without our Heavenly " Father " 

The sparrows fall. 

And if He foldeth in a sleep eternal 

Their wings to rest ; 
Or waketh them to fly the skies supernal — 

He knoweth best ? Mary Sheppard. 



EGYPTIAN RITUAL. 
God is the causer of pleasure and light, maker of 
grass f or the cattle, and of fruitful trees for man, caus- 
ing the fish to live in the river and the birds to fill the 
air, lying awake when all men sleep, to seek out the 
good of His creatures. 

Quoted by Eev. J. E. Carpenter. 



BROTHERHOOD. 
There is a higher consanguinity than that of the 
blood which runs through our veins, — - that of the blood 
which makes our hearts beat witfy the same indignation 
and the same joy. And there is a higher nationality 
than that of being governed by the same imperial dy- 
nasty, — that of our common allegiance to the Father 
and Ruler of all mankind* Max Muller. 



40 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

A BIRTHDAY ADDRESS. 

TO ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, SEVENTH EARL OF SHAFTES- 
BURY, K. G., APRIL 13, 1880. 

For eighty years! Many will count them over, 
But none but He who knoweth all may guess 

What those long years have held of high endeavor. 
Of world-wide blessing and of blessedness. 

For eighty years the champion of the right 
Of hapless child neglected and forlorn ; 

Of maniac dungeoned in his double night ; 
Of woman overtasked and labor-worn ; 

Of homeless boy, in streets with peril rife ; 

Of workman, sickened in his airless den ; 
Of Indian parching for the streams of life ; 

Of negro slave in bond of cruel men. 

O Friend of all the friendless 'neath the sun, 
Whose hand hath wiped away a thousand tears, 

Whose fervent lips and clear strong brain have done 
God's holy service, lo ! these eighty years, — 

How meet it seems thy grand and vigorous age 

Should find beyond man's race fresh pangs to spare, 

And for the wronged and tortured brutes engage 
In yet fresh labors and ungrudging care ! 

Oh, tarry long amongst us ! Live, we pray, 

Hasten not yet to hear thy Lord's " Well done 2 " 

Let this world still seem better while it may 
Contain one soul like thine amid its throng. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 41 

"Whilst thou art here our inmost hearts confess, 
Truth spake the kingly seer of old who said, — 

" Found in the way of God and righteousness, 
A crown of glory is the hoary head. 

Miss F. P. Cobbe. 



SUFFERING. 
Pain, terror, mortal agonies which scare 
Thy heart in man, to brutes thou wilt not spare* 

Are these less sad and real ? Pain in man 
Bears the high mission of the flail and fear ; 

In brutes 't is purely piteous. Henry Taylor. 



TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 
Who knows thy love most royal power, 

With largess free and brave, 
Which crowns the helper of the poor, 

The suffering and the slave. 

Yet springs as freely and as warm, 

To greet the near and small, 

The prosy neighbor at the farm, 

The squirrel on the wall. 

Eliza Scudder. 



VIVISECTION. 
It is the simple idea of dealing with a living, con- 
scious, sensitive, and intelligent creature as if it were 
dead and senseless matter, against which the whole spirit 
of true humanity revolts. It is the notion of such ab- 
solute despotism as shall justify, not merely taking life, 
but converting the entire existence of the animal into a 



42 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

misfortune which we denounce as a misconception of the 
relations between the higher and lower creatures. A 
hundred years ago had physiologists frankly avowed 
that they recognized no claims on the part of the brutes 
which should stop them from torturing them, they would 
have been only on a level with their contemporaries. 
But to-day they are behind the age. 

As I have said ere now, the battle of Mercy, like that 

of Freedom, 

" Once begun, 
Though often lost, is always won." 

Miss F. P. Cobbe. 



NOBILITY. 
From yon blue heavens above us bent 
The grand old gardener and his wife 

Smile at the claims of long descent. 
Howe'er it be, it seems to me 
'T is only noble to be good ; 
Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
And simple faith than Norman blood. 

A. Tennyson. 

ACTS OF MERCY. 
Yes, any act of mercy, even to the humblest and low- 
liest of God's creatures, is an act that brings us near to 
God. Although " the mercy of God," as the Psalmist 
says, "reaches to the heavens, although his judgments 
are like the great deep," yet still, as the Psalmist adds, 
it is the same mercy, the same justice as that which wo 
know in ourselves. "Thou, preservest both man and 
beast ; how exalted is thy mercy, O Lord ; therefore 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 43 

the children of men take refuge under the shadow of 
thy wings." That mercy which we see in the complex 
arrangements of the animal creation, extending down to 
the minutest portions of their frames — that same Di- 
vine mercy it is which we are bid to imitate. He whose 
soul burns with indignation against the brutal ruffian 
who misuses the poor, helpless, suffering horse, or dog, 
or ass, or bird, or worm, shares for the moment that 
Divine companion wrath which burns against the op- 
pressors of the weak and defenceless everywhere. He 
who puts forth his hand to save from ill treatment, or 
add to the happiness of any of those dumb creatures, has 
opened his heart to that Divine compassion which our 
Heavenly Father has shown to the whole range of cre- 
ated things — which our blessed Saviour has shown to 
the human race, his own peculiar charge, by living and 
dying for us. " Be ye merciful " to dumb animals, for 
ye have a common nature with them. Be ye merciful, 
for the worst part of the nature of brutes is to be un- 
merciful. Be ye merciful, for ye are raised far above 
them, to be their appointed lords and guardians. Be ye 
merciful, for ye are made in the image of him who is All- 
Merciful and All- Compassionate. Dean Stanley. 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN". 
He beheld the poor man's need ; 
Bound his wounds, and with all speed 
Set him on his own good steed, 
And brought him to the inn. 

When our Judge shall reappear, 
Thinkest thou this man will hear, 



44 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Wherefore didst thou interfere 
With what concerned not thee ? 

No ! the words of Christ will run 
" Whatsoever thou hast done 
To the poor and suffering one 
That hast thou done to me." 



Anon. 



LOVE. 

Thus, when Christianity announced its fundamental 
idea of love, it, by an immovable logic, enveloped all 
things in that affection, and every dumb brute of the 
street comes within the colored curtains of the sanctu- 
ary. The Humane Society is a branch of God's Church, 
and we Christian church-members are all members of all 
such associations, so far as we are intelligent members 
of the Church of Christ. Love does not mean love of 
me or you, but it means love always and for all. 

Prof. Swing. 



CHILDREN AT SCHOOL. 

If children at school can be made to understand how 
it is just and noble to be humane even to what we term 
inferior animals, it will do much to give them a higher 
character and tone through life. There is nothing meaner 
than barbarous and cruel treatment of the dumb crea- 
tures, who cannot answer us or resent the misery which 
is so often needlessly inflicted upon them. 

John Bright. 

MEMBERSHIP OF THE CHURCH. 
Love and charity being the basis of Christianity, it is 
as much a question for the Church to ask, when a person 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 45 

wishes to be admitted into her bosom, " Are you kind to 
animals ? " as it is to ask, " Do you believe in such or 
such a doctrine ? " Certainly the question would be per- 
tinent to Christian life and consonant with the funda- 
mental and distinguishing principle of the Christian 
religion ; and the mere asking of it at so solemn a junc- 
ture could not but do much to assimilate and draw closer 
the heart and life of the novitiate to Him who sees every 
sparrow that falls. E. Hathaway. 



FEELING FOR ANIMALS. 
The power of feeling for animals, realizing their wants 
and making their pains our own, is one which is most 
irregularly shown by human beings. A Timon may 
have it, and a Howard be devoid of it. A rough shep- 
herd's heart may overflow with it, and that of an exqui- 
site fine gentleman and distinguished man of science 
may be as utterly without it as the nether millstone. 
One thing I think must be clear: till man has learnt 
to feel for all his sentient fellow-creatures, whether in 
human or in brutal form, of his own class and sex and 
country, or of another, he has not yet ascended the first 
step towards true civilization nor applied the first lesson 
from the love of God. Miss F. P. Cobbe. 



HEROIC. 

Nay, on the strength of that same element of self- 
sacrifice, I will not grudge the epithet " heroic " which 
my revered friend Darwin justly applies to the poor 
little monkey who once in his life did that which was 
above his duty; who lived in continual terror of the 



46 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

great baboon, and yet, when the brute had sprung upon 
his friend the keeper, and was tearing out his throat, 
conquered his fear by love, and, at the risk of instant 
death, sprung in turn upon his dreaded enemy, and bit 
and shrieked until help arrived. Charles Kingslet. 



EFFECT OF CRUELTY. 
The effect of the barbarous treatment of inferior crea- 
tures on the minds of those who practise it is still more 
deplorable than its effects upon the animals themselves. 
The man who kicks dumb brutes kicks brutality into his 
own heart. He who can see the wistful imploring eyes 
of half-starved creatures without making earnest efforts 
to relieve them, is on the road to lose his manhood, if he 
has not already lost it. And the boy who delights in 
torturing frogs or insects, or robbing birds'-nests, or dog- 
ging cattle and hogs wantonly and cruelly, can awaken 
no hope of an honorable after life. E. Hathaway. 



ASPIRATION. 
Oh may I join the choir invisible 
Of those immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence : live 
In pulses stirred to generosity : 
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
For miserable aims that end with self ; 
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 
And with their mild persistence urge men's search 
To vaster issues. George Eliot. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 47 

THE POOR BEETLE. 
The sense of death is most in apprehension ; 
And the poor beetle that we tread upon, 
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
As when a giant dies. 

Measure for Measure, Act 3, Sc. 1. 



THE CONSUMMATION. 

It is little indeed that each of us can accomplish 
within the limits of our little day. Small indeed is the 
contribution which the best of us can make to the ad- 
vancement of the world in knowledge and goodness. 
But slight though it be, if the work we do is real and 
noble work, it is never lost ; it is taken up into and be- 
comes an integral moment of that immortal life to which 
all the good and great of the past, every wise thinker, 
every true and tender heart, every fair and saintly spirit, 
have contributed, and winch, never hasting, never rest- 
ing, onward through ages is advancing to its consumma- 
tion. Rev. Dr. Caird. 



PERSEVERE. 
Salt of the earth, ye virtuous few 

Who season human kind ! 
Light of the world, whose cheering ray 

Illumes the realms of mind ! 

Where misery spreads her deepest shade, 
Your strong compassion glows ; 

From your blest lips the balm distils 
That softens mortal woes. 



48 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Proceed : your race of glory run, 

Your virtuous toils endure ; 
You come, commissioned from on high, 

And your reward is sure. 

Mrs. Barbauld. 



A VISION. 
When 'twixt the drawn forces of Night and of Morning, 

Strange visions steal down to the slumbers of men, 
From heaven's bright stronghold once issued a warning, 

Which baffled all scorning, when brought to my ken. 

Methought there descended the Saints and the Sages, 
With grief-stricken aspect and wringing of hands, 

Till Dreamland seemed filled with the anguish of ages, 
The blots of Time's pages, the woes of all lands. 

And I, who had deemed that their bliss knew no morrow 
(Half vexed with their advent, half awed with their 
might) — 

Cried, " Come ye from heaven, Earth's aspect to borrow, 
To mar with weird sorrow the peace of the night ? " 

They answered me sternly, " Thy knowledge is mortal ; 

Thou hear'st not as we must, the plaints without 
tongue : 
The wrongs that come beating the crystalline portal, 

Inflicted by mortals on those who are dumb. 

" Ye bleed for the nation, ye give to the altar, 
Ye heal the great sorrows that clamor and cry. 

Yet care not how oft 'neath the spur and the halter, 
The brutes of the universe falter and die. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 49 

" Yet Jesus forgets not that while ye ensnared Him, 
And drove Him with curses of burden and goad, 

These gentle ones watched where the Magi declared 
Him, 
And often have spared Him the long desert road. 

" They crumble to dust ; but we, w*atchers remaining, 
Attest their endurance through centuries past, 

Oh, fear ! lest in future to Judgment attaining, 

These woes, uncomplaining, confront you at last ! " 

Julia C. Verplanck. 



SPEAK GENTLY. 
Speak gently ! it is better far 

To rule by love than fear : 
Speak gently ! let not harsh words mar 

The good we might do here. 

Speak gently ! 't is a little thing, 
Dropped in the heart's deep well, 

The good, the joy, which it may bring, 
Eternity shall tell. 

O, it is excellent 
To have a giant's strength ; but it is tyrannous 
To use it like a giant. 

Measure for Measure, Act 2, Sc. 2. 



QUESTIONS. 
Is there not something in the pleading eye 
Of the poor brute that suffers, which arraigns 
The law that bids it suffer ? Has it not 

4 



50 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

A claim for some remembrance in the book, 
That fills its pages with the idle words 
Spoken of man ? Or is it only clay, 
Bleeding and aching in the potter's hand, 
Yet all his own to treat it as he will, 
And when he will to cast it at his feet, 
Shattered, dishonored, lost for evermore ? 
My dog loves me, but could he look beyond 
His earthly master, would his love extend 
To Him who — Hush ! I will not doubt that He 
Is better than our fears, and will not wrong 
The least, the meanest of created things. 

O. W. Holmes. 



HEROES. 
The heroes are not all six feet tall, 
Large souls, may dwell in bodies small, 
The heart that will melt with sympathy 
For the poor and the weak, whoe'er it be, 
Is a thing of beauty, whether it shine 
In a man of forty or lad of nine. 



Scattered Seed. 



FOR THE SAKE OF THE INNOCENT ANIMALS. 

During his march to conquer the world, Alexander, 
the Macedonian, came to a people in Africa, who dwelt 
in a remote and secluded corner, in peaceful huts, and 
knew neither war nor conqueror. They led him to the 
hut of their chief, and placed before him golden dates, 
golden figs, and bread of gold. " Do you eat gold in this 
country ? " said Alexander. " I take it for granted," 
replied the chief, " that thou wert able to find eatables in 
thine own country. For what reason, then, art thou come 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 51 

among us ? " " Your gold has not tempted me hither," 
said Alexander ; " but I would become acquainted with 
your manner and customs." "So be it," rejoined the 
other ; " sojourn among us as long as it pleaseth thee." 
At the close of this conversation two citizens entered, 
as into their court of justice. The plaintiff said : " I 
bought of this man a piece of land, and as I was mak- 
ing a deep drain through it, I found a treasure. This 
is not mine, for I only bargained for the land, and not 
for any treasure that might be concealed beneath it; and 
yet the former owner of the land will not receive it." 
The defendant answered : " I hope I have a conscience 
as well as my fellow-citizen. I sold him the land with 
all its contingent, as well as existing advantages, and 
consequently the treasure inclusively." 

The chief, who was also their supreme judge, recapit- 
ulated their words, in order that the parties might see 
whether or not he understood them aright. Then, after 
some reflection, he said, " Thou hast a son, friend, I be- 
lieve ? " " Yes." " And thou (addressing the other) a 
daughter?" "Yes." "Well, then, let thy son marry 
thy daughter, and bestow the treasure on the young 
couple for a marriage portion." Alexander seemed sur- 
prised and perplexed. " Think you my sentence un- 
just ? " the chief asked him. " Oh, no ! " replied Alex- 
ander ; " but it astonishes me." " And how, then," 
rejoined the chief, " would the case have been decided in 
your country ? " " To confess the truth," said Alexan- 
der, " we should have taken both into custody, and have 
seized the treasure for the king's use." " For the king's 
use ! " exclaimed the chief. " Does the sun shine on 
that country ? " " Oh, yes." " Does it rain there ? " 
" Assuredly." " Wonderful ! But are there tame ani- 



52 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

mals in the country that live on the grass and green 
herbs ? " " Very many, and of many kinds." " Ay, 
that must then be the cause," said the chief ; " for the 
sake of those innocent animals the all-gracious Being 
continues to let the sun shine and the rain drop down on 
your own country, since its inhabitants are unworthy of 

such blessings." Unknown. 

— ♦ — 

RING OUT. 
Ring out a slowly dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife ; 

Ring in the nobler modes of life, 
With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

Ring out false pride in place and blood, 

The civic slander and the spite ; 

Ring in the love of truth and right, 
Ming in the common love of good. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 

Ring out the darkness of the land, 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

A. Tennyson. 

FAME AND DUTY. 
" What shall I do, lest life in silence pass ? " 

" And if it do, 
And never prompt the bray of noisy brass, 

What need'st thou rue ? 
Remember, aye the ocean-deeps are mute ; 

The shallows roar : 
Worth is the ocean, — fame is but the bruit 

Along the shore." 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 53 

" What shall I do to be forever known ? " 

" Thy duty ever." 
" This did full many who yet slept unknown." 

" Oh, never, never ! 
Think'st thou perchance that they remain unknown 

Whom thou know'st not ? 
By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown — 

Divine their lot." 

" What shall I do to gain eternal life ? " 

" Discharge aright 
The simple dues with which each day is rife, 

Yea, with thy might. 
Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise, 

WiU life be fled, 

Where he, who ever acts as conscience cries, 

Shall live though dead." 

Schiller. 



NO CEREMONY. 
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, 
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, 
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, 
Become them with one half so good a grace 
As mercy does. If he had been as you, 
And you as he, you would have slipt like him ; 
But he, like you, would not have been so stern. 
Measure for Measure, Act 2, Sc. 



TRUE LEADERS. 
Languor is not in your heart, 
Weakness is not in your word, 



54 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Weariness not in your brow. 

Ye alight in our van ! at your voice, 

Panic, despair flee away. 

Ye move through the ranks, recall 

The stragglers, refresh the outworn, 

Praise, reinspire the brave. 

Order, courage return ; 

Eyes rekindling, and prayers 

Follow your steps as you go. 

Ye fill up the gaps in our files, 

Strengthen the wavering line, 

Stablish, continue our march, 

On, to the bound of the waste, 

On, to the City of God. Matthew Arnold. 



BE KIND TO DUMB CREATURES. 

A SONG. 

Be kind to dumb creatures, be gentle, be true, 
For food and protection they look up to you ; 
For affection and help to your bounty they turn. 
Oh, do not their trusting hearts wantonly spurn ! 

Chorus : 

Be kind to dumb creatures, nor grudge them your care, 
God gave them their life, and your love they must 

share ; 
And He who the sparrow's fall tenderly heeds, 
Will lovingly look on compassionate deeds. 

The brave are the tender, — then do not refuse 
To carefully cherish the brutes you must use ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 55 

Make their life's labor sweet, not dreary and sad, 
Their working and serving you, easy and glad. 
Chorus : "Be kind," etc. 

He made them and blessed them, the least are his care : 
The swallow that wings her swift flight through the air, 
The dog on your hearthstone, the horse in your barn, 
The cow in your pasture, the sheep on your farm. 
Chorus : " Be kind," etc. Our Dumb Animals. 



ACTION. 
Do something ! do it soon ! with all thy might ; 

An angel's wing would droop if long at rest, 

And God inactive were no longer blest. 
Some high or humble enterprise of good 

Contemplate till it shall possess thy mind, 
Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food, 

And kindle in thy heart a flame refined : 
Pray heaven for firmness thy whole soul to bind 

To this high purpose : to begin, pursue, 
With thoughts all fixed, and feelings purely kind ; 

Strength to complete, and with delight review, 

And strength to give the praise where all is due. 

Wilcox. 



"IN HIM WE LIVE." 
The measureless gulfs of air are full of Thee : 

Thou art, and therefore hang the stars : they wait 
And swim, and shine in God who bade them be, 

And hold their sundering voids inviolate. 

A God concerned (veiled in pure light) to bless, 
With sweet revealing of his love, the soul ; 



56 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Towards things piteous, full of piteousness ; 

The Cause, the Life, and the continuing Whole. 

He is more present to all things He made 

Than anything unto itself can be ; 
Full-foliaged boughs of Eden could not shade 
Afford, since God was also 'neath the tree. 

Jean Ingelow. 
— << — 

FIRM AND FAITHFUL. 
Be firm and be faithful ; desert not the right ; 
The brave are the bolder, the darker the night ; 
Then up and be doing, though cowards may fail ; 
Thy duty pursuing, dare all, and prevail. 

If scorn be thy portion, if hatred and loss, 
If stripes or a prison, remember the cross ! 
God watches above thee, and He will requite ; 
Stand firm and be faithful, desert not the right. 

Norman McLeod. 



HEART SERVICE. 
Our hearts' pure service, Love, be thine, 
Who clothest all with rights divine, 
Whose great Soul burns, though ne'er so dim, 
In all that walk, or fly, or swim. 

All Father ! who on Mercy's throne 
Hear'st thy dumb creatures' faintest moan, — 
Thy love be ours, and ours shall be 
Returned in deeds to thine and Thee. 

Rev. H. Bernard Carpenter. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. . 57 



EXULTING SINGS. 

Sweet morn ! from countless cups of gold 

Thou liftest reverently on high 
More incense fine than earth can hold, 
To fill the sky. 

The lark by his own carol blest, 

From thy green harbors eager springs ; 
And his large heart in little breast 
Exulting sings. 

The fly his jocund round unweaves, 

With choral strain the birds salute 

The voiceful flocks, and nothing grieves, 

And naught is mute. 

To thousand tasks of fruitful hope, 

With skill against Ins toil, man bends 
And finds his work's determined scope 
Where'er he wends. 

From earth, and earthly toil and strife, 
To deathless aims his love may rise, 
Each dawn may wake to better life, 

With purer eyes. John Sterling. 



IN HOLY BOOKS. 
In holy books we read how God hath spoken 

To holy men in many different ways ; 
But hath the present worked no sign nor token ? 

Is God quite silent in these latter days ? 



58 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

The word were but a blank, a hollow sound, 
If He that spake it were not speaking still ; 

If all the light and all the shade around 
"Were aught but issues of Almighty Will. 

So, then, believe that every bird that sings, 
And every flower that stars the elastic sod, 

And every thought the happy summer brings, 
To the pure spirit is a word of God. 

Hartley Coleridge. 



THE BELL OP ATRI. 
At Atri in Abruzzo, a small town 
Of ancient Roman date, but scant renown, 
One of those little places that have run 
Half up the hill, beneath a blazing sun, 
And then sat down to rest, as if to say, 
" I climb no farther upward, come what may," — 
The Re Giovanni, now unknown to fame, 
So many monarchs since have borne the name, 
Had a great bell hung in the market-place 
Beneath a roof, projecting some small space, 
By way of shelter from the sun and rain. 
Then rode he through the streets with all his train, 
And, with the blast of trumpets loud and long, 
Made proclamation, that whenever wrong 
Was done to any man, he should but ring 
The great bell in the square, and he, the King, 
Would cause the Syndic to decide thereon. 
Such was the proclamation of King John. 

How swift the happy days in Atri sped, 

What wrongs were righted, need not here be said. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 59 

Suffice it that, as all things must decay, 
The hempen rope at length was worn away, 
Unravelled at the end, and strand by strand, 
Loosened and wasted in the ringer's hand, 
Till one, who noted this in passing by, 
Mended the rope with braids of briony, 
So that the leaves and tendrils of the vine 
Hung like a votive garland at a shrine. 

By chance it happened that in Atri dwelt 
A knight, with spur on heel and sword in belt, 
Who loved to hunt the wild-boar in the woods, 
Who loved his falcons with their crimson hoods, 
Who loved his hounds and horses, and all sports 
And prodigalities of camps and courts ; — 
Loved, or had loved them : for at last, grown old, 
His only passion was the love of gold. 

He sold his horses, sold his hawks and hounds, 
Rented his vineyards and his garden-grounds, 
Kept but one steed, his favorite steed of all, 
To starve and shiver in a naked stall, 
And day by day sat brooding in his chair, 
Devising plans how best to hoard and spare. 

At length he said : " What is the use or need 
To keep at my own cost this lazy steed, 
Eating his head off in my stables here, 
When rents are low and provender is dear ? 
Let him go feed upon the public ways ; 
I want him only for the holidays." 
So the old steed was turned into the heat 
Of the long, lonely, silent, shadeless street ; 



60 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

And wandered in suburban lanes forlorn, 
Barked at by dogs, and torn by brier and thorn. 

One afternoon, as in that sultry clime 

It is the custom in the summer-time, 

With bolted doors and window-shutters closed, 

The inhabitants of Atri slept or dozed ; 

When sutrdenly upon their senses fell 

The loud alarum of the accusing bell ! 

The Syndic started from his deep repose, 

Turned on his couch, and listened, and then rose 

And donned his robes, and with reluctant pace 

Went panting forth into the market-place, 

Where the great bell upon its cross-beam swung 

Reiterating with persistent tongue, 

In half-articulate jargon, the old song : 

" Some one hath done a wrong, hath done a wrong ! " 

But ere he reached the belfry's light arcade 
He saw, or thought he saw, beneath its shade, 
No shajje of human form of woman born, 
But a poor steed dejected and forlorn, 
Who with uplifted head and eager eye 
Was tugging at the vines of briony. 
" Domeneddio ! " cried the Syndic straight, 
" Tins is the Knight of Atri's steed of state ! 
He calls for justice, being sore distressed, 
And pleads his cause as loudly as the best." 

Meanwhile from street and lane a noisy crowd 
Had rolled together like a summer cloud, 
And told the story of the wretched beast 
In five-and-twenty different ways at least, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 61 

"With much gesticulation and appeal 
To heathen gods, in their excessive zeal. 
The Knight was called and questioned ; in reply- 
Did not confess the fact, did not deny ; 
Treated the matter as a pleasant jest, 
And set at naught the Syndic and the rest, 
Maintaining, in an angry undertone, 
That he should do what pleased him with his own. 

And thereupon the Syndic gravely read 

The proclamation of the King ; then said : 

" Pride goeth forth on horseback grand and gay, 

But cometh back on foot, and begs its way ; 

Fame is the fragrance of heroic deeds, 

Of flowers of chivalry and not of weeds ! 

These are familiar proverbs ; but I fear 

They never yet have reached your knightly ear. 

What fair renown, what honor, what repute 

Can come to you from starving this poor brute ? 

He who serves well and speaks not, merits more 

Then they who clamor loudest at the door. 

Therefore the law decrees that, as this steed 

Served you in youth, henceforth you shall take heed 

To comfort his old age, and to provide 

Shelter in stall, and food and field beside." 

The Knight withdrew abashed ; the people all 

Led home the steed in triumph to his stall. 

The King heard and approved, and laughed in glee, 

And cried aloud : " Right well it pleaseth me ! 

Church-bells at best but ring us to the door ; 

But go not in to mass ; my bell doth more : 

It cometh into court and pleads the cause 



62 VOICES FOR TEE SPEECHLESS. 

Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws ; 
And this shall make, in every Christian clime, 
The Bell of Atri famous for all time." 

Tales of a Wayside Inn, second day, 1872. 



AMONG THE NOBLEST. 
" Yes, well your story pleads the cause 
Of those dumb mouths that have no speech, 
Only a cry from each to each 
In its own kind, with its own laws ; 
Something that is beyond the reach 
Of human power to learn or teach, — 
An inarticulate moan of pain, 
Like the immeasurable main 
Breaking upon an unknown beach." 

Thus spake the poet with a sigh ; 
Then added, with impassioned cry, 
As one who feels the words he speaks, 
The color flushing in his cheeks, 
The fervor burning in his eye : 
" Among the noblest in the land, 
Though he may count himself the least, 
That man I honor and revere 
Who without favor, without fear, 
In the great city dares to stand 
The friend of every friendless beast, 
And tames with his unflinching hand 
The brutes that wear our form and face, 
The were-wolves of the human race ! " 

Tales of a Wayside Inn, second day, 1872. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 63 

THE FALLEN HORSE. 

Mr. George Herbert's love to music was such that 
he went usually twice every week, on certain appointed 
days, to the Cathedral Church in Salisbury. When rec- 
tor of Bemerton, in one of his walks to Salisbury, he 
saw a poor man with a poorer horse, that was fallen 
under his load ; they were both in distress, and needed 
present help, which Mr. Herbert perceiving, put off his 
canonical coat and helped the poor man to unload, and 
after to load his horse. The poor man blessed him for 
it, and he blessed the poor man ; and was so like the 
good Samaritan, that he gave him money to refresh both 
himself and his horse ; and told him, " That if he loved 
himself, he should be merciful to his beast." 

Thus he left the poor man : and at his coming to his 
musical friends at Salisbury, they began to wonder that 
Mr. George Herbert, who used to be so trim and clean, 
came into that company so soiled and discomposed ; but 
he told them the occasion. And when one of the com- 
pany told him " he had disparaged himself by so dirty 
an employment," his answer was : " That the thought 
of what he had done would prove music to him at mid- 
night : and that the omission of it would have upbraided 
and made discord in his conscience, whensoever he should 
pass by that place ; for if I be bound to pray for all that 
be in distress, I am sure that I am bound, so far at it is 
in my power, to practise what I pray for. And though 
I do not wish for a like occasion every day, yet let me 
tell you, I would not willingly pass one day of my life 
without comforting a sad soul, or showing mercy, and I 
praise God for this occasion." Izaak Walton's Lives. 



64 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

THE HORSE. 

Hast thou given the horse strength ? 

Hast thou clothed his neck with his trembling mane ? 

Hast thou taught him to bound like the locust ? 

How majestic his snorting ! how terrible ! 

He paweth in the valley ; he exulteth in his strength, 

And rusheth into the midst of arms. 

He laugheth at fear ; he trembleth not, 

And turneth not back from the sword. 

Against him rattle the quiver, 

The flaming spear, and the lance. 

"With rage and fury he devoureth the ground ; 

He will not believe that the trumpet soundeth. 

At every blast of the trumpet, he saith, Aha ! 

And snurTeth the battle afar off, — 

The thunder of the captains, and the war-shout. 

Job, chap. 39, Noyes' Translation. 



THE BIRTH OP THE HORSE. 
FROM THE ARABIC. 

When Allah's breath created first 

The noble Arab steed, — 
The conqueror of all his race 

In courage and in speed, — 

To the South-wind He spake : From thee 

A creature shall have birth, 
To be the bearer of my arms 

And my renown on earth. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 65 

Then to the perfect horse He spake : 

Fortune to thee I bring ; 
Fortune, as long as rolls the earth, 

Shall to thy forelock cling. 

Without a pinion winged thou art, 

And fleetest with thy load ; 
Bridled art thou without a rein, 

And spurred without a goad. 

Bayard Tatlok. 



TO HIS HORSE. 

Come, my beauty ! come, my desert darling ! 

On my shoulder lay thy glossy head ! 
Fear not, though the barley-sack be empty, 

Here 's the half of Hassan's scanty bread. 

Thou shalt have thy share of dates, my beauty ! 

And thou know'st my water-skin is free : 
Drink and welcome, for the wells are distant, 

And my strength and safety lie in thee. 

Bend thy forehead now, to take my kisses ! 

Lift in love thy dark and splendid eye : 
Thou art glad when Hassan mounts the saddle, — 

Thou art proud he owns thee : so am I. 

Let the Sultan bring his boasted horses, 

Prancing with their diamond-studded reins ; 

They, my darling, shall not match thy fleetness 
When they course with thee the desert plains ! 
5 



66 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

We have seen Damascus, O my beauty ! 

And the splendor of the Pashas there ; 
What 's their pomp and riches ? why, I would not 

Take them for a handful of thy hair ! 

Bayard Taylok. 



SYMPATHY FOR HORSE AND HOUND, 

Yet pity for a horse o'erdriven, 
And love in which my hound has part, 
Can hang no weight upon my heart, 

In its assumptions up to heaven : 

And I am so much more than these 
As thou, perchance, art more than I, 
And yet I would spare them sympathy, 

And I would set their pains at ease. 

Tennyson's In Memortam. 



THE BLOOD HORSE. 
Gamarra is a dainty steed, 
Strong, black, and of a noble breed, 
Full of fire, and full of bone, 
With all his line of fathers known ; 
Fine his nose, his nostrils thin, 
But blown abroad by the pride within ! 
His mane is like a river flowing, 
And his eyes like embers glowing 
In the darkness of the night, 
And his pace as swift as light. 

Look, — how 'round his straining throat 
Grace and shining beauty float ! 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 67 

Sinewy strength is in his reins, 

And the red blood gallops through his veins — 

Richer, redder, never ran 

Through the boasting heart of man. 

He can trace his lineage higher 

Than the Bourbon dare aspire, — 

Douglas, Guzman, or the Guelph, 

Or O'Brien's blood itself ! 

He, who hath no peer, was born, 

Here upon a red March morn ; 

But his famous fathers dead 

"Were Arabs all, and Arabs bred, 

And the last of that great line 

Trod like one of a race divine ! 

And yet, — he was but friend to one 

Who fed him at the set of sun 

By some lone fountain fringed with green ; 

With him, a roving Bedouin, 

He lived (none else would he obey 

Through all the hot Arabian day), — 

And died untamed upon the sands 

Where Balkh amidst the desert stands ! 

Barry Cornwall. 

THE CID AND BAVIECA. 
The king looked on him kindly, as on a vassal true ; 
Then to the king Ruy Diaz spake, after reverence due, 
" king ! the thing is shameful, that any man beside 
The liege lord of Castile himself, should Bavieca ride. 

" For neither Spain nor Araby could another charger 

bring 
So good as he, and certes, the best befits my king, 



68 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

But, that you may behold him, and know him to the 

core, 
I '11 make him go as he was wont when his nostrils 

smelt the Moor." 

With that the Cid, clad as he was, in mantle furred 
and wide, 

On Bavieca vaulting, put the rowel in his side ; 

And up and down, and round and round, so fierce was 
his career, 

Streamed like a pennon on the wind, Ruy Diaz' mini- 
ver e. 

And all that saw them praised them, — they lauded 

man and horse, 
As matched well, and rivals for gallantry and force ; 
Ne'er had they looked on horsemen might to this 

knight come near, 
Nor on other charger worthy of such a cavalier. 

Thus, to and fro a-rushing, the fierce and furious 

steed, 
He snapped in twain his nether rein : " God pity 

now the Cid ! 
God pity Diaz ! " cried the lords, — but when they 

looked again, 
They saw Ruy Diaz ruling him with the fragment of 

his rein ; 

They saw him proudly ruling with gesture firm and 
calm, 

Like a true lord commanding, and obeyed as by a 

lamb. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 69 

And so he led him foaming and panting to the king, 
But, "No," said Don Alphonso, it were a shameful 

thing, 
That peerless Bavieca should ever be bestrid 
By any mortal but Bivar, — mount, mount again, my 
Cid ! " Lockhart's Spanish Ballads. 



THE KING OF DENMARK'S RIDE. 
Word was brought to the Danish king, 

(Hurry!) 
That the love of his heart lay suffering, 
And pined for the comfort his voice would bring ; 

(Oh ! ride as though you were flying !) 
Better he loves each golden curl 
On the brow of that Scandinavian girl 
Than his rich crown-jewels of ruby and pearl ; 

And his Rose of the Isles is dying. 

Thirty nobles saddled with speed ; 

(Hurry !) 
Each one mounted a gallant steed 
Which he kept for battle and days of need ; 

(Oh ! ride as though you were flying !) 
Spurs were struck in the foaming flank ; 
Worn-out chargers staggered and sank ; 
Bridles were slackened, and girths were burst : 
But ride as they would, the king rode first ; 

For his Rose of the Isles lay dying. 

His nobles are beaten, one by one ; 

(Hurry !) 
They have fainted, and faltered, and homeward gone ; 



70 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

His little fair page now follows alone, 

For strength and for courage trying, 
The king looked back at that faithful child : 
Wan was the face that answering smiled. 
They passed the drawbridge with clattering din : 
Then he dropped ; and only the king rode in 
Where his Rose of the Isles lay dying. 

The king blew a blast on his bugle horn ; 

(Silence!) 
No answer came, but faint and forlorn 
An echo returned on the cold gray morn, 

Like the breath of a spirit sighing. 
The castle portal stood grimly wide ; 
None welcomed the king from that weary ride ; 
For, dead in the light of the dawning day, 
The pale sweet form of the welcomer lay, 
Who had yearned for his voice while dying. 

The panting steed with a drooping crest 

Stood weary. 
The king returned from her chamber of rest, 
The thick sobs choking in his breast ; 

And that dumb companion eying, 
The tears gushed forth, which he strove to check ; 
He bowed his head on his charger's neck : 
" O steed, that every nerve didst strain, 
Dear steed, our ride hath been in vain, 

To the halls where my love lay dying ! " 

Caroline Elizabeth Norton. 



Go forth under the open sky and list 

To Nature's teachings. Bryant. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 71 

DO YOU KNOW? 

" Yesterday we buried my pretty brown mare under the wild- 
cherry tree. End of poor Bess." 

When a human being dies, 
Seeming scarce so good or wise, 
Scarce so high in scale of mind 
As the horse he leaves behind, 
" Lo," we cry, " the fleeting spirit 
Doth a newer garb inherit ; 
Through eternity doth soar, 
Growing, greatening, evermore." 
But our beautiful dumb creatures 
Yield their gentle, generous natures, 
With their mute, appealing eyes, 
Haunted by earth's mysteries, 
Wistfully upon us cast, 
Loving, trusting, to the last ; 
And we arrogantly say, 
" They have had their little day ; 
Nothing of them but was clay.'* 

Has all perished ? Was no mind 
In that graceful form enshrined ? 
Can the love that filled those eyes 
With most eloquent replies, 
When the glossy head close pressing, 
Grateful met your hand's caressing ; 
Can the mute intelligence, 
Baffling oft our human sense 
With strange wisdom, buried be 
" Under the wild-cherry tree ? " 
Are these elements that spring 



72 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

In a daisy's blossoming, 
Or in long dark grasses wave 
Plume-like o'er your favorite's grave ? 
Can they live in us, and fade 
In all else that God has made ! 
Is there aught of harm believing 
That, some newer form receiving, 
They may find a wider sphere, 
Live a larger life than here ? 
That the meek, appealing eyes, 
Haunted by strange mysteries, 
Find a more extended field, 
To new destinies unsealed ; 
Or that in the ripened prime 
Of some far-off summer time, 
Ranging that unknown domain, 
We may find our pets again ? 

Helen Barron Bostwick. 



THE BEDOUIN'S REBUKE. 
A Bedouin of true honor, good Nebar, 
Possessed a horse whose fame was spread afar ; 
No other horse was half so proud and strong ; 
His feet were like the north wind swept along ; 
In his curved neck, and in his flashing eye, 
You saw the harbingers of victory. 

So, many came to Nebar day by day, 
And longed to take his noble horse away ; 
Large sums they offered, and with grace besought. 
But, all in vain ; the horse could not be bought. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 73 

With these came Daher, of another tribe, 
To see if he might not the owner bribe ; 
Yet purposeless, — no money, skill, nor breath 
Could part the owner from his horse till death. 

Then Daher, who was subtle, mean, and sly, 
Concluded, next, some stratagem to try ; 
So, clothed in rags, and masked in form and face, 
He as a beggar walked with limping pace, 
And, meeting Nebar with the horse one day, 
He fell, and prostrate on the desert lay. 

The ruse succeeded ; for, when Nebar found 
A helpless man in sorrow on the ground, 
He took him up, and on the noble steed 
Gave him a place ; but what a thankless deed ! 
For Daher shouted, laughed, and, giving rein, 
Said, " You will never see your horse again ! " 

u Take him," said Nebar, " but, for Mercy's sake, 

Tell no man in what way you choose to take, 

Lest others, seeing what has happened me, 

Omit to do some needed charity." 

Pierced by these words, the robber's keen remorse 

Thwarted his plan, and he returned the horse, 

Shame-faced and sorrowful ; then slunk away 

As if he feared the very light of day ! Axon. 



FROM " THE LORD OF BUTRAGO." 

Your horse is faint, my King, my lord ! your gallant 

horse is sick, — 
His limbs are torn, his breast is gored, on his eye the 

film is thick : 



74 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Mount, mount on mine, O mount apace, I pray thee, 

mount and fly ! 
Or in my arms I '11 lift your Grace, — their trampling 

hoofs are nigh ! 

My King, my King ! you 're wounded sore, — the blood 
runs from your feet ; 

But only lay a hand before, and I '11 lift you to your seat ; 

Mount, Juan, for they gather fast ! — I hear their com- 
ing cry, — 

Mount, mount, and ride for jeopardy, — I '11 save you, 
though I die ! 

Stand, noble steed ! this hour of need, — be gentle as a 

lamb ; 
I '11 kiss the foam from off thy mouth, — thy master 

dear I am, — 
Mount, Juan, mount ; whate'er betide, away the bridle 

fling, 
Drive on, drive on with utmost speed, — My horse shall 

save my King ! Lockart's Spanish Ballads. 



"BAY BILLY." — (Extracts.) 
At last from out the centre fight 

Spurred up a general's aid. 
" That battery must silenced be ! " 

He cried, as past he sped. 
Our colonel simply touched his cap, 

And then, with measured tread, 

To lead the crouching line once more 
The grand old fellow came. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 75 

No wounded man but raised his head 

And strove to gasp his name, 
And those who could not speak nor stir, 

" God blessed hini " just the same. 

This time we were not half-way up, 

When, midst the storm of shell, 
Our leader, with his sword upraised, 

Beneath our bayonets fell. 
And, as we bore him back, the foe 

Set up a joyous yell. 

Just then before the laggard line 

The colonel's horse we spied, 
Bay Billy with his trappings on, 

His nostrils swelling wide, 
As though still on his gallant back 

The master sat astride. 

Right royally he took the place 

That was of old his wont, 
And with a neigh that seemed to say, 

Above the battle's brunt, 
" How can the Twenty-second charge 

If I am not in front ? " 

No bugle-call could rouse us all 

As that brave sight had done. 
Down all the battered line we felt 

A hghtning impulse run. 
Up ! up ! the hill we followed Bill, 

And we captured every gun ! 



76 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

And then the dusk and dew of night 

Fell softly o'er the plain, 
As though o'er man's dread work of death 

The angels wept again, 
And drew night's curtain gently round 

A thousand beds of pain. 

At last the morning broke. The lark 

Sang in the merry skies 
As if to e'en the sleepers there 

It bade awake, and rise ! 
Though naught but that last trump of all 

Could ope their heavy eyes. 

And as in faltering tone and slow, 

The last few names were said, 
Across the field some missing horse 

Toiled up with weary tread, 
It caught the sergeant's eye, and quick 

Bay Billy's name he read. 

Not all the shoulder-straps on earth 

Could still our mighty cheer ; 
And ever from that famous day, 

When rang the roll-call clear, 
Bay Billy's name was read, and then 

The whole line answered, " Here ! " 

Frank H. Gassawat. 



"We cannot kindle when we will, 
The fire that in the heart resides ; 
But tasks in hours of insight willed, 
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled. 

M. Arnold. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS, 7 

THE BIDE OP COLLINS GRAVES. — (Extracts.) 

AN INCIDENT OF THE FLOOD IN MASSACHUSETTS, 

MAY 16, 1874. 

What was it, that passed like an ominous breath — 
Like a shiver of fear, or a touch of death ? 
What is it ? The valley is peaceful still, 
And the leaves are afire on top of the hill. 
It was not a sound — nor a thing of sense — 
But a pain, like the pang of the short suspense 
That thrills the being of those who see 
At their feet the gulf of Eternity ! 

The air of the valley has felt the chill : 
The workers pause at the door of the mill ; 
The housewife, keen to the shivering air, 
Arrests her foot on the cottage stair, 
Instinctive taught by the mother-love, 
And thinks of the sleeping ones above. 
Why start the listeners ? Why does the course 
Of the mill-stream widen ? Is it a horse — 
Hark to the sound of his hoofs, they say — 
That gallops so wildly Williamsburg way ! 
God ! what was that, like a human shriek 
From the winding valley ? Will nobody speak ? 
Will nobody answer those women who cry 
As the awful warnings thunder by ? 

Whence come they ? Listen ! And now they hear 
The sound of galloping horse-hoofs near ; 
They watch the trend of the vale, and see 
The rider who thunders so menacingly, 
With waving arms and warning scream 



78 VOICES FOR TEE SPEECHLESS. 

To the home-filled banks of the valley stream. 

He draws no rein, but he shakes the street 

With a shout and the ring of the galloping feet ; 

And this the cry he flings to the wind ; 

" To the hills for your lives ! The flood is behind ! " 

But onward still, 
In front of the roaring flood is heard 
The galloping horse and the warning word. 
Thank God ! the brave man's life is spared ! 
From Williamsburg town he nobly dared 
To race with the flood and take the road 
In front of the terrible swath it mowed. 
For miles it thundered and crashed behind, 
But he looked ahead with a steadfast mind ; 
" They must be warned ! " was all he said, 
As away on his terrible ride he sped. 

John Boyle O'Reilly. 



PAUL REVEEE'S RIDE. 
A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, 
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark 
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet : 
That was all ! and yet, through the gloom and the light, 
The fate of a nation was riding that night ; 
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight, 
Kindled the land into flame with its heat. 

He has left the village and mounted the steep, 
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, 
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 79 

And under the alders, that skirt its edge, 
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, 
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. 

It was twelve by the village clock 

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. 

He heard the crowing of the cock, 

And the barking of the farmer's dog, 

And felt the damp of the river fog, 

That rises after the sun goes down. 

It was one by the village clock, 

When he galloped into Lexington. 

He saw the gilded weathercock 

Swim in the moonlight as he passed, 

And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, 

Gaze at him with a spectral glare, 

As if they already stood aghast 

At the bloody work they would look upon. 

It was two by the village clock, 

When he came to the bridge in Concord town 

He heard the bleating of the flock, 

And the twitter of birds among the trees, 

And felt the breath of the morning breeze 

Blowing over the meadows brown. 

And one was safe and asleep in his bed 

Who at the bridge would be first to fall, 

Who that day would be lying dead, 

Pierced by a British musket-ball. 

You know the rest. In the books you have read, 
How the British Regulars fired and fled, — 



80 VOICES FOR TEE SPEECHLESS. 

How the farmers gave them ball for ball, 
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, 
Chasing the red-coats down the lane, 
Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to fire and load. 

So through the night rode Paul Revere ; 

And so through the night went his cry of alarm 

To every Middlesex village and farm, — 

A cry of defiance and not of fear, 

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 

And a word that shall echo for evermore ! 

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, 

Through all our history, to the last, 

In the hour of darkness and peril and need, 

The people will waken and listen to hear 

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, 

And the midnight message of Paul Revere. 

H. W. Longfellow. 



SHERIDAN'S RIDE. — (Extracts.) 
Up from the South at break of day, 
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay, 
The affrighted air with a shudder bore, 
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door 
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar, 
Telling the battle was on once more, 
And Sheridan twenty miles away. 

But there is a road from Winchester town, 

A good broad highway leading down ; 

And there, through the flush of the morning light, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 81 

A steed as black as the steeds of night, 
Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight, 
As if he knew the terrible need ; 
He stretched away with his utmost speed ; 
Hills rose and fell ; but his heart was gay, 
With Sheridan fifteen miles away. 

Under his spurning feet the road 

Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed, 

And the landscape sped away behind 

Like an ocean flying before the wind, 

And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace fire, 

Swept on, with his wild eye full of ire. 

But lo ! he is nearing his heart's desire ; 

He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray, 

With Sheridan only five miles away. 

The first that the general saw were the groups 
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops, 
What was done ? what to do ? a glance told him both, 
Then striking his spurs, with a terrible oath, 
He dashed down the line, mid a storm of huzzas, 
And the wave of retreat checked its course there, be- 
cause 
The sight of the master compelled it to pause. 
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray ; 
By the flash of his eye, and the red nostril's play, 
He seemed to the whole great army to say, 
" I have brought you Sheridan all the way 
From Winchester down, to save the day ! " 

Hurrah ! hurrah for Sheridan ! 
Hurrah ! hurrah for horse and man ! 



82 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

And when their statues are placed on high, 
Under the dome of the Union sky, 
The American soldiers' Temple of Fame; 
There with the glorious general's name, 
Be it said, in letters both bold and bright, 
" Here is the steed that saved the day, 
By carrying Sheridan into the fight, 
From Winchester, twenty miles away ! " 

Thomas Buchanan Read. 



GOOD NEWS TO AIX. — (Extract.) 
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he ; 
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; 
" Good speed ! " cried the watch as the gate-bolts un- 
drew, 
" Speed ! " echoed the wall to us galloping through. 
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 
And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 

Not a word to each other ; we kept the great pace, — 
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our 

place ; 
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
Then shortened each stirrup and set the pique right, 
Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit, 
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 

'T was moonset at starting ; but while we drew near 
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear ; 
At Boom a great yellow star came out to see ; 
At Duffeld 't was morning as plain as could be ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 83 

And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half- 
chime, — 
So Joris broke silence with " Yet there is time ! " 

At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, 
And against him the cattle stood black every one, 
To stare through the mist at us galloping past, 
And I saw my stout galloper, Roland, at last, 
With resolute shoulders, each butting away 
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray. 

(But " Roos " and the " Roan " fell dead on the way ; the 
latter, when Aix was in sight !) 

And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 
Of the news which alone co'uld save Aix from her fate, 
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, 
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 

Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall, 
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer ; 
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or 

good, 
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 

And all I remember is, friends flocking round 
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground, 
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, 
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, 
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
Was no more than his due who brought good news from 
Ghent. Robert Browning. 



84 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

DYING IN HARNESS. 
Only a fallen horse, stretched out there on the road, 
Stretched in the broken shafts, and crushed by the heavy 

load ; 
Only a fallen horse, and a circle of wondering eyes 
Watching the 'frighted teamster goading the beast to 

rise. 

Hold ! for his toil is over — no more labor for him ; 
See the poor neck outstretched, and the patient eyes 

grow dim ; 
See on the friendly stones now peacefully rests his 

head — 
Thinking, if dumb beasts think, how good it is to be 

dead; 
After the burdened journey, how restful it is to lie 
With the broken shafts and the cruel load — waiting 

only to die. 

Watchers, he died in harness — died in the shafts and 

straps — 
Fell, and the great load killed him ; one of the day's 

mishaps — 
One of the passing wonders marking the city road — 
A toiler dying in harness, heedless of call or goad. 

Passers, crowding the pathway, staying your steps awhile, 
What is the symbol ? " Only death ? why should you 

cease to smile 
At death for a beast of bin den ? " On through the busy 

street 
That is ever and ever echoing the tread of the hurrying 

feet! 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 85 

What was the sign ? A symbol to touch the tireless 
will. 

Does he who taught in parables speak in parables still ? 

The seed on the rock is wasted — on heedless hearts of 
men, 

That gather and sow and grasp and lose — labor and 
sleep — and then — 

Then for the prize ! A crowd in the street of ever- 
echoing tread — 

The toiler, crushed by the heavy load, is there in his 
harness — dead. John Boyle O'Reilly. 



PLUTARCH'S HUMANITY. 
For my part, I cannot but charge his using his ser- 
vants like so many beasts of burden, and turning them 
off, or selling them when they grew old, to the account 
of a mean and ungenerous spirit which thinks that the 
sole tie between man and man is interest or necessity. 
But goodness moves in a larger sphere than justice. 
The obligations of law and equity reach only to man- 
kind, but kindness and beneficence should be extended 
to creatures of every species ; and these still flow from 
the breast of a well-natured man, as streams that issue 
from the living fountain. A good man will take care of 
his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but 
when old and past service. Thus the people of Athens, 
when they had finished the temple called Hecatompedon, 
set at liberty the beasts of burden that had been chiefly 
employed in the work, suffering them to pasture at large, 
free from any other service. It is said that one of these 
afterwards came of its own accord to work, and, put- 
ting itself at the head of the laboring cattle, marched 



8G VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

before them to the citadel. This pleased the people, and 
they made a decree that it should be kept at the public 
charge so long as it lived. The graves of Cimon's 
mares, with which he thrice conquered at the Olympic 
games, are still to be seen near his own tomb. Many 
have shown particular marks of regard, in burying the 
dogs which they had cherished and been fond of ; and 
amongst the rest Xantippus of old, whose dog swam by 
the side of his galley to Salamis, when the Athenians 
were forced to abandon their city, and was afterwards 
buried by him upon a promontory, which to this day is 
called the Dog's Grave. We certainly ought not to 
treat living creatures like shoes or household goods, 
which, when worn out with use, we throw away ; and 
were it only to learn benevolence to humankind, we 
should be merciful to other creatures. For my own 
part, I would not sell even an old ox that had labored 
for me ; much less would I remove, for the sake of a 
little money, a man grown old in my service, from his 
usual lodgings and diet ; for to him, poor man ! it would 
be as bad as banishment, since he could be of no more 
use to the buyer than he was to the seller. But Cato, as 
if he took a pride in these things, tells us, that when 
consul, he left his war-horse in Spain to save the public 
the charge of his conveyance. Whether such things as 
these are instances of greatness or littleness of soul, let 
the reader judge for himself. 

From " Cato the Censor" in the " Lives." 



THE HORSES OF ACHILLES. 
The gentleness of chivalry, properly so called, de- 
pends on the recognition of the order and awe of lower 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 87 

and loftier animal life, first clearly taught in the myth 
of Chiron, and in his bringing up of Jason, iEsculapius, 
and Achilles, but most perfectly by Homer, in the fable 
of the horses of Achilles, and the part assigned to them, 
in relation to the death of his friend, and in prophecy of 
his own. There is, perhaps, in all the " Iliad," nothing 
more deep in significance — there is nothing in all litera- 
ture more perfect in human tenderness, and honor for the 
mystery of inferior life — than the verses that describe 
the sorrow of the divine horses at the death of Patro- 
clus, and the comfort given them by the greatest of gods. 

Euskin. 

THE WAR HORSE. 
Sir Robert Clayton, a British cavalry officer, says of 
some war horses which had been humanely turned out 
to perpetual pasture, that while the horses were grazing 
on one occasion, a violent thunderstorm arose ; at once 
the animals fell into line and faced the blazing lightning 
under an impression that it was the flash of artillery and 
the fire of battle. 



PEGASUS TN POUND. 
Once into a quiet village, 

Without haste and without heed, 
In the golden prime of morning, 

Strayed the poet's winged steed. 

It was Autumn, and incessant 

Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves, 
And, like living coals, the apples 

Burned among the withering leaves. 



88 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Loud the clamorous bell was ringing 
From its belfry gaunt and grim ; 

'T was the daily call to labor, 
Not a triumph meant for him. 

Not the less he saw the landscape, 

In its gleaming vapor veiled ; 
Not the less he breathed the odors 

That the dying leaves exhaled. 

Thus, upon the village common, 
By the school-boys he was found ; 

And the wise men, in their wisdom, 
Put him straightway into pound. 

Then the sombre village crier, 

Ringing loud his brazen bell, 
Wandered down the street proclaiming 

There was an estray to sell. 

And the curious country people, 
Rich and poor, and young and old, 

Came in haste to see the wondrous 
Winged steed with mane of gold. 

Thus the day passed, and the evening 
Fell, with vapors cold and dim ; 

But it brought no food nor shelter, 
Brought no straw nor stall, for him. 

Patiently, and still expectant, 

Looked he through the wooden bars, 

Saw the moon rise o'er the landscape, 
Saw the tranquil, patient stars ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 89 

Till at length the bell at midnight 

Sounded from its dark abode, 
And, from out a neighboring farm-yard, 

Loud the cock Alectryon crowed. 

Then, with nostrils wide distended, 

Breaking from his iron chain, 
And unfolding far his pinions, 

To those stars he soared again. 

On the morrow, when the village 

Woke to all its toil and care, 
Lo ! the strange steed had departed, 

And they knew not when nor where. 

But they found, upon the greensward 
Where his struggling hoofs had trod, 

Pure and bright, a fountain flowing 
From the hoof-marks in the sod. 

From that hour, the fount unfailing 

Gladdens the whole region round, 
Strengthening all who drink its waters, 

While it soothes them with its sound. 

H. W. Longfellow. 



THE HORSE. 
Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rising 
of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved 
praise on my palfrey ; it is a theme as fluent as the sea ; 
turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is 
argument for them all ; 't is a subject for a sovereign to 
reason on, and for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on ; 



90 VOICES FOE THE SPEECHLESS. 

and for the world (familiar to us and unknown), to lay- 
apart their particular functions and wonder at him. 

Henry V. Act 3, Sec. 7. 



FROM " THE FORAY." 
Our steeds are impatient ! I hear my blithe Gray ! 
There is life in his hoof-clang, and hope in his neigh ; 
Like the flash of a meteor, the glance of his mane 
Shall marshal your march through the darkness and rain. 

Walter Scott. 



ON LANDSEER'S PICTURE, " WAITING FOR 
MASTER." 

The proud steed bends his stately neck 
And patient waits his master's word, 
While Fido listens for his step, 

Welcome, whenever heard. 
King Charlie shakes his curly ears, 
Secure his home, no harm he fears ; 
Above the peaceful pigeons coo 
Their happy hymn, the long day through. 

What means this scene of quiet joy, 
This peaceful scene without alloy ! 
Kind words, kind care, and tender thought 
This picture beautiful have wrought. 
Its lesson tells of care for all 
God's creatures, whether great or small, 
And they who love " the least of these," 
Are sure a loving God to please. 

Our Dumb Animals. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 91 



THE BIRDS. 

THE WATERFOWL. 

Whither, 'midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day 
Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean side ? 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — 
The desert and illimitable air, — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere ; 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near. 

And soon that toil shall end ; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest 
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend 

Some o'er thy sheltered nest. 



92 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Thou 'rt gone — the abyss of heaven 
Hath swallowed up thy form — yet on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 

And shall not soon depart. 

He, who from zone to zone 

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 

In the long way that I must tread alone 

Will lead my steps aright. 

W. C. Bryant. 



SEA FOWL. 
Through my north window, in the wintry weather, — 

My airy oriel on the river shore, — 
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together 

Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar. 

I see the solemn gulls in council sitting 

On some broad ice-floe, pondering long and late, 

While overhead the home-bound ducks are flitting, 
And leave the tardy conclave in debate, 

Those weighty questions in their breasts revolving, 
Whose deeper meaning science never learns, 

Till at some reverend elder's look dissolving, 
The speechless senate silently adjourns. 

He knows you ! " sportsman " from suburban alleys, 
Stretched under seaweed in the treacherous punt ; 

Knows every lazy, shiftless lout that sallies 

Forth to waste powder — as he says, to " hunt. " 

I watch you with a patient satisfaction, 

Well pleased to discount your predestined luck ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 93 

The float that figures in your sly transaction 
Will carry back a goose, but not a duck. 

Shrewd is our bird ; not easy to outwit him ! 

Sharp is the outlook of those pin-head eyes ; 
Still, he is mortal and a shot may hit him ; 

One cannot always miss him if he tries ! 

O Thou who carest for the falling sparrow, 
Canst Thou the sinless sufferer's pang forget ? 

Or is thy dread account-book's page so narrow 
Its one long column scores thy creature's debt ? 

Poor, gentle guest, by nature kindly cherished, 
A world grows dark with thee in blinding death ; 

One little gasp, — thy universe has perished, 
Wrecked by the idle thief who stole thy breath ! 
From "My Aviary," by 0. W. Holmes. 



THE SANDPIPER. 

Across the narrow beach we flit, 

One little sandpiper and I, 
And fast I gather, bit by bit, 

The scattered driftwood bleached and dry. 
The wild waves reach their hands for it, 

The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, 
As up and down the beach we flit, — 

One little sandj)iper and I. 

Above our heads the sullen clouds 
Scud black and swift across the sky ; 

Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds 
Stand out the white lighthouses high. 



94 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Almost as far as eye can reach, 

I see the close-reefed vessels fly, 
As fast we flit along the beach, — 

One little sandpiper and I. 

I watch him as he skims along, 

Uttering his sweet and mournful cry. 
He starts not at my fitful song, 

Or flash of fluttering drapery. 
He has no thought of any wrong ; 

He scans me with a fearless eye. 
Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong, 

The little sandpiper and I. 

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night, 

When the loosed storm breaks furiously ? 
My driftwood fire will burn so bright ! 

To what warm shelter canst thou fly ? 
I do not fear for thee, though wroth 

The tempest rushes through the sky : 
For are jive not God's children both, 

Thou, little sandpiper, and I ? 

Celia Thaxter. 



THE BIRDS OF KILLIWGWORTH. 
The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, 

Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee ; 
The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud 

Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be ; 
And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd, 

Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly, 
Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said : 
" Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread ! " 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 95 

Thus came the jocund Spring in Killingworth, 
In fabulous days, some hundred years ago ; 

And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth, 
Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow. 

That mingled with the universal mirth, 
Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe ; 

They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words 

To swift destruction the whole race of birds. 

And a town-meeting was convened straightway 

To set a price upon the guilty heads 
Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay, 

Levied black-mail upon the garden beds 
And cornfields, and beheld without dismay 

The awful scarecrow, with his fluttering shreds ; 
The skeleton that waited at their feast, 
Whereby their sinful pleasure was increased. 

Rose the Preceptor, ..... 
To speak out what was in him, clear and strong. 

" Plato, anticipating the Reviewers, 

From his Republic banished without pity 

The Poets ; in this little town of yours, 

You put to death, by means of a Committee, 

The ballad-singers and the troubadours, 
The street-musicians of the heavenly city, 

The birds who make sweet music for us all 

In our dark hours, as David did for Saul. 

THEIR SONGS. 

" The thrush that carols at the dawn of day 
From the green steeples of the piny wood ; 



96 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS, 

The oriole in the elm ; the noisy jay, 
Jargoning like a foreigner at his food ; 

The bluebird balanced on some topmost spray, 
Flooding with melody the neighborhood ; 

Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng 

That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song. 

" You slay them all ! and wherefore ? for the gain 
Of a scant handful more or less of wheat, 

Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, 

Scratched up at random by industrious feet, 

Searching for worm or weevil after rain ! 
Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet 

As are the songs these uninvited guests 

Sing at their feast with comfortable breasts. 

" Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these ? 

Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught 
The dialect they speak, where melodies 

Alone are the interpreters of thought ? 
Whose household words, are songs in many keys, 

Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught ! 
Whose habitations in the tree-tops even 
Are half-way houses on the road to heaven ! 

" Think, every morning when the sun peeps through 
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove, 

How jubilant the happy birds renew 

Their old melodious madrigals of love ! 

And when you think of this, remember too 
'T is always morning somewhere, and above 

The awakening continents, from shore to shore, 

Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 97 

THEIR SERVICE TO MAN - . 

" Think of your woods and orchards without birds ! 

Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams 
As in an idiot's brain remembered words 

Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams ! 
Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds 

Make up for the lost music, when your teams 
Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more 
The feathered gleaners follow to your door ? 

" What ! would you rather see the incessant stir 

Of insects in the windrows of the hay, 
And hear the locust and the grasshopper 

Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play ? 
Is this more pleasant to you than the whir 

Of meadow-lark, and her sweet roundelay, 
Or twitter of little field-fares, as you take 
Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake ? 

" You call them thieves and pillagers ; but know, 
They are the winged wardens of your farms, 

Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, 
And from your harvest keep a hundred harms. 

Even the blackest of them all, the crow, 
Renders good service as your man-at-arms, 

Crushing the beetle in his coat-of-mail, 

And crying havoc on the slug and snail. 

THE CLAIMS OF GENTLENESS AND REVERENCE. 

" How can I teach your children gentleness, 

And mercy to the weak, and reverence 
For Life, which, in its weakness or excess, 

Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, 



98 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less 
The selfsame light, although averted hence, 
When by your laws, your actions, and your speech, 
You contradict the very things I teach ? " 

The birds were doomed ; and, as the record shows, 
A bounty offered for the heads of crows. 



THE RESULT OF THEIR DESTRUCTION. 

Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town, 

Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly 
Slaughtered the Innocents, From the trees spun 
down 

The canker-worms upon the passers-by, 
Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown, 

Who shook them off with just a little cry ; 
They were the terror of each favorite walk, 
The endless theme of all the village talk. 

The farmers grew impatient, but a few 

Confessed their error, and would not complain, 

For after all, the best thing one can do 
When it is raining, is to let it rain. 

Then they repealed the law, although they knew 
It would not call the dead to life again ; 

As school-boys, rinding their mistake too late, 

Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate. 

That year in Killingworth the Autumn came 
Without the light of his majestic look, 

The wonder of the falling tongues of flame, 
The illumined pages of his Doom's-Day book. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 99 

A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame, 
And drowned themselves despairing in the brook, 
While the wild wind went moaning everywhere, 
Lamenting the dead children of the air ! 

THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS. 

But the next Spring a stranger sight was seen, 
A sight that never yet by bard was sung, 

As great a wonder as it would have been 
If some dumb animal had found a tongue ! 

A wagon, overarched with evergreen, 

Upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung, 

All full of singing birds, came down the street, 

Filling the air with music wild and sweet. 

From all the country round these birds were brought, 
By order of the town, with anxious quest, 

And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought 
In woods and fields the places they loved best, 

Singing loud canticles, which many thought 
Were satires to the authorities addressed, 

While others, listening in green lanes, averred 

Such lovely music never had been heard ! 

H. W. Longfellow. 



THE MAGPIE. 
" Man is unjust, but God is just ; and finally justice 
Triumphs ; and well I remember a story, that often con- 



soled me, 



When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at Port 
Royal." 

This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to re- 
peat it 



100 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

When his neighbors complained that any injustice was 
done them. 

" Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer re- 
member, 

Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice 

Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in his 
left hand, 

And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice pre- 
sided 

Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of 
the people. 

Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the 
balance, 

Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sun- 
shine above them. 

But in course of time the laws of the land were cor- 
rupted ; 

Might took the place of right, and the weak were op- 
pressed, and the mighty 

Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a noble- 
man's palace 

That a necklace of pearls was lost, and erelong a sus- 
picion 

Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the house- 
hold. 

She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaf- 
fold, 

Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of 
Justice. 

As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit as- 
cended, 

Lo ! o'er the city a tempest rose ; and the bolts of the 
thunder 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 101 

Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from 

its left hand 
Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the 

balance, 
And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a 

magpie, 
Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was 

inwoven." H. W. Longfellow, in Evangeline. 



THE MOCKING-BIRD. 

Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, 
wildest of singers, 

Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the 
water, 

Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious 
music, 

That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed 
silent to listen. 

Plaintive at first were the tones and sad ; then soaring 
to madness 

Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied 
Bacchantes. 

Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamen- 
tation ; 

Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in 
derision, 

As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree- 
tops 

Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the 
branches. H. W. Longfellow, in Evangeline. 



!02 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 



EARLY SONGS AND SOUNDS. 
To hear the lark begin his flight, 
And singing startle the dull night 
From his watch-tower in the skies 
Till the dappled dawn doth rise ; 
Then to come, in spite of sorrow, 
And at my window bid good-morrow 
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine, 
Or the twisted eglantine ; 
While the cock with lively din 
Scatters the rear of darkness thin ; 
And to the stack, or the barn door, 
Stoutly struts his dames before ; 
Oft listening how the hounds and horn 
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn 
From the side of some hoar hill, 
Through the high wood echoing shrill. 

John Milton. 

THE SPARROW'S NOTE. 
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, 

Singing at dawn on the alder bough ; 
I brought him home, in his nest, at even, ' 

He sings the song, but it pleases not now, 
For I did not bring home the river and sky ; 
He sang to my ear, they sang to my eye. 

E. W. Emerson. 



THE GLOW-WORM. 
Nor crush a worm, whose useful light 
Might serve, however small, 
To show a stumbling-stone by night, 
And save man from a fall. Cowper. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 103 

ST. FRANCIS TO THE BIRDS. 
Up soared the lark into the air, 
A shaft of song, a winged prayer, 
As if a soul, released from pain, 
Were flying back to heaven again. 

St. Francis heard ; it was to him 
An emblem of the Seraphim ; 
The upward motion of the fire, 
The light, the heat, the heart's desire. 

Around Assisi's convent gate 
The birds, God's poor who cannot wait, 
From moor and mere and darksome wood 
Came flocking for their dole of food. 

" O brother birds," St. Francis said, 
" Ye come to me and ask for bread, 
But not with bread alone to-day 
Shall ye be fed and sent away. 

" Ye shallbe fed, ye happy birds, 

With manna of celestial words ; 

Not mine, though mine they seem to be, 

Not mine, though they be spoken through me. 

" Oh, doubly are ye bound to praise 
The great Creator in your lays ; 
He giveth you your plumes of down, 
Your crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown. 

; ' He giveth you your wings to fly 
And breathe a purer air on high, 



104 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

And careth for you everywhere, 
Who for yourselves so little care ! " 

"With flufEer of swift wings and songs 
Together rose the feathered throngs, 
And singing scattered far apart ; 
Deep peace was in St. Francis' heart. 

He knew not if the brotherhood 
His homily had understood ; 
He only knew that to one ear 
The meaning of his words was clear. 

H. W. Longfellow. 



WORDSWORTH'S SKYLARK. 
Ethereal Minstrel ! Pilgrim of the sky ! 
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound ? 
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye 
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground ? 
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, 
Those quivering wings composed, that music still ! 

To the last point of vision, and beyond, 
Mount, daring warbler ! that love-prompted strain, 
('Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) 
Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain : 
Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege ! to sing 
All independent of the leafy spring. 

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood ; 
A privacy of glorious light is thine ; 
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 
Of harmony, with instinct more divine ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 105 

Type of the wise who soar, but never roam ; 
True to the kindred points of heaven and home ! 

"Wordsworth. 



SHELLEY'S SKYLARK. -(Extracts.) 
Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest, 

Like a cloud of fire, 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

Teach us, sprite or bird, 

What sweet thoughts are thine : 
I have never heard 
Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 

Chorus hymeneal 

Or triumphal chant 
Matched with thine, would be all 

But an empty vaunt — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 

What objects are the fountains 
Of thy happy strain ? 



106 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
What shapes of sky or plain ? 
What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ? 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound, 
Better than all treasures 

That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 

Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now ! 

P. B. Shelley. 



HOGG'S SKYLARK. 
Bird of the wilderness, 
Blithesome and cumberless, 

Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea ! 
Emblem of happiness, 
Blest is thy dwelling-place, — 

Oh to abide in the desert with thee ! 
Wild is the day and loud 
Far in the downy cloud, 

Love gives it energy, love gave it birth. 
Where, on thy dewy wing, 
Where art thou journeying ? 

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. 
O'er fell and mountain sheen, 
O'er moor and mountain green, 

O'er the red streamer that heralds the day, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 107 

Over the cloudlet dim, 

Over the rainbow's rim, 
Musical cherub, soar, singing, away ! 

Then, when the gloaming comes, 

Low in the heather blooms 
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be ! 

Emblem of happiness, 

Blest is thy dwelling-place, 

Oh to abide in the desert with thee ! 

James Hogg. 

A skylark wounded on the wing 
Doth make a cherub cease to sing. 

He who shall hurt a little wren 

Shall never be beloved by men. W. Blake. 



THE SWEET-VOICED QUIRE. 
Lord, should we oft forget to sing 

A thankful evening hymn of praise, 
This duty, they to mind might bring, 

Who chirp among the bushy sprays. 

For in their perches they retire, 

When first the twilight waxeth dim ; 

And every night the sweet-voiced quire 
Shuts up the daylight with a hymn. 

Ten thousand fold more cause have we 
To close each day with praiseful voice, 

To offer thankful hearts to Thee, 
And in thy mercies to rejoice. 

George Wither, 1628. 



108 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 



A CAGED LARK. 
A cruel deed 
It is, sweet bird, to cage thee up 
Prisoner for life, with just a cup 
And a box of seed, 
And sod to move on barely one foot square, 
Hung o'er dark street, midst foul and murky air. 

From freedom brought, 
And robbed of every chance of wing, 
Thou couldst have had no heart to sing, 
One would have thought. 
But though thy song is sung, men little know 
The yearning source from which those sweet notes flow. 

Poor little bird ! 
As often as I think of thee, 
And how thou longest to be free, 
My heart is stirred, 
And, were my strength but equal to my rage, 
Methinks thy eager would be in his cage. 

The selfish man ! 
To take thee from thy broader sphere, 
Where thousands heard thy music clear, 
On Nature's plan ; 
And where the listening landscape far and wide 
Had joy, and thou thy liberty beside. 

A singing slave 
Made now ; with no return but food ; 
No mate to love, nor little brood 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 109 

To feed and save ; 
No cool and leafy haunts ; the cruel wires 
Chafe thy young life and check thy just desires. 

Brave little bird ! 
Still striving with thy sweetest song 
To melt the hearts that do thee wrong, 
I give my word 
To stand with those who for thy freedom fight, 
Who claim for thee that freedom as thy right. 

Chambers's Journal. 



THE WOODLARK. 
I have a friend across the street, 

"We never yet exchanged a word, 
Yet dear to me his accents sweet — 

I am a woman, he a bird. 

And here we twain in exile dwell, 
Far from our native woods and skies, 

And dewy lawns with healthful smell, 
Where daisies lift their laughing eyes. 

Never again from moss-built nest 

Shall the caged woodlark blithely soar ; 

Never again the heath be pressed 
By foot of mine for evermore ! 

Yet from that feathered, quivering throat 
A blessing wings across to me ; 

No thrall can hold that mellow note, 
Or quench its flame in slavery. 



110 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

When morning dawns in holy calm, 
And each true heart to worship calls, 

Mine is the prayer, but his the psalm, 
That floats about our prison walls. 

And as behind the thwarting wires 
The captive creature throbs and sings, 

With him my mounting soul aspires 
On Music's strong and cleaving wings. 

My chains fall off, the prison gates 
Fly open, as with magic key ; 

And far from life's perplexing straits, 
My spirit wanders, swift and free. 

Back to the heather, breathing deep 
The fragrance of the mountain breeze, 

I hear the wind's melodious sweep 

Through tossing boughs of ancient treeSc 

Beneath a porch where roses climb 

I stand as I was used to stand, 
Where cattle-bells with drowsy chime 
Make music in the quiet land. 

Fast fades the dream in distance dim, 
Tears rouse me with a sudden shock ; 

Lo ! at my door, erect and trim, 

The postman gives his double knock. 

And a great city's lumbering noise 
Arises with confusing hum, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. Ill 

And whistling shrill of butchers' boys ; 
My day begins, my bird is dumb. 

Temple Bar. 

—o — 

KEATS'S NIGHTINGALE. 
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird ! 

No hungry generations tread thee down : 
The voice I heard this passing night was heard 

In ancient days by emperor and clown : 
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home, 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; 
The same that ofttimes hath 
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam 
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 

Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell 

To toll me back from thee to my sole self ! 
Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well 
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. 
Adieu ! Adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades 
Past the near meadows, over the still stream, 
Up the hill-side : and now 't is buried deep 
In the next valley-glades 
Was it a vision, or a waking dream ? 

Fled is that music : — do I wake or sleep ? 

J. Keats. 

— •— 

LARK AND NIGHTINGALE. 
Color and form may be conveyed by words, 

But words are weak to tell the heavenly strains 
That from the throats of these celestial birds 

Rang through the woods and o'er the echoing plains ; 



112 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

There was the meadow-lark with voice as sweet, 
But robed in richer raiment than our own ; 

And as the moon smiled on his green retreat, 
The painted nightingale sang out alone. 

Words cannot echo music's winged note, 

One voice alone exhausts their utmost power ; 
'T is that strange bird, whose many-voiced throat 

Mocks all his brethren of the woodlawn bower, 
To whom, indeed, the gift of tongues is given, 

The musical, rich tongues that fill the grove ; 
Now, like the lark, dropping his notes from heaven, 

Now cooing the soft notes of the dove. 

Oft have I seen him, scorning all control, 

Winging his arrowy flight, rapid and strong, 
As if in search of his evanished soul, 

Lost in the gushing ecstasy of song ; 
And as I wandered on and upward gazed, 

Half lost in admiration, half in fear, 
I left the brothers wondering and amazed, 

Thinking that all the choir of heaven was near. 

Denis Florence MacCarthy. 



FLIGHT OF THE BIRDS. 
Meanwhile the tepid caves, and fens, and shores, 
Their brood as numerous hatch from the egg that soon 
Bursting with kindly rupture, forth disclosed 
Their callow young ; but feathered soon and fledge 
They summed their pens ; and, soaring the air sublime, 
With clang despised the ground, under a cloud 
In prospect : there the eagle and the stork 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 113 

On cliffs and cedar-tops their eyries build ; 

Part loosely wing the region ; part, more wise, 

In common ranged in figure, wedge their way, 

Intelligent of seasons, and set forth 

Their aery caravan, high over seas 

Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing 

Easing their flight ; so steers the prudent crane 

Her annual voyage, borne on winds ; the air 

Floats as they pass, fanned with unnumbered plumes : 

From branch to branch the smaller birds with song 

Solaced the woods, and spread their painted wings 

Till even ; nor then the solemn nightingale 

Ceased warbling, but all night tuned her soft lays : 

Others, on silver lakes and rivers, bathed 

Their downy breasts ; the swan with arched neck 

Between her white wings, mantling proudly, rows 

Her state with oary feet ; yet oft they quit 

The dank, and, rising on stiff pennons, tower 

The mid aerial sky : others on ground 

Walked firm ; the crested cock, whose clarion sounds 

The silent hours ; and the other, whose gay train 

Adorns him, colored with the florid hue 

Of rainbows and starry eyes. 

Milton : Paradise Lost, book 7. 



A CHILD'S WISH. 
I would I were a note 
From a sweet bird's throat ! 
I 'd float on forever, 
And melt away never ! 
I would I were a note 
From a sweet bird's throat ! 
8 



114 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

But I am what I am ! 

As content as a lamb. 

No new state I '11 covet ; 

For how long should I love it ? 

No, I 'H be what I am, — 

As content as a lamb ! 

Poetry for Children. 



THE HUMMING-BIRD. 
Emerald-plumed, ruby-throated., 

Flashing like a fair star 
Where the humid, dew-becoated, 
Sun-illumined blossoms are — 
See the fleet humming-bird ! 
Hark to his humming, heard 
Loud as the whirr of a fairy king's car ! 
Sightliest, sprightliest, lightest, and brightest one, 
Child of the summer sun,. 
Shining afar I 

Brave little humming-bird ! 

Every eye blesses thee ; 

Sunlight caresses thee, 
Forest and field are the fairer for thee. 
Blooms, at thy coming stirred, 

Bend on each brittle stem, 

Nod to the little gem, 
Bow to the humming-bird, frolic and free. 
Now around the woodbine hovering, 
Now the morning-glory covering, 
Now the honeysuckle sipping, 
Now the sweet clematis tipping, 
Now into the bluebell dipping ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 115 

Hither, thither, flashing, bright'ning, 
Like a streak of emerald lightning : 
Round the box, with milk-white plox ; 
Round the fragrant four-o'-clocks ; 
O'er the crimson quamoclit, 
Lightly dost thou wheel and flit ; 
Into each tubed throat 
Dives little Ruby-throat. 

Bright-glowing airy thing, 
Light-going fairy thing, 

Not the grand lyre-bird 
Rivals thee, splendid one ! — 
Fairy-attended one, 

Green-coated fire-bird ! 
Shiniest fragile one, 
Tiniest agile one, 
Falcon and eagle tremble before thee ! 
Dim is the regal peacock and lory, 

And the pheasant, iridescent, 
Pales before the gleam and glory 
Of the jewel-change incessant, 
When the sun is streaming o'er thee ! 



Hear thy soft humming, 
Like a sylph's drumming ! 



Califo 



THE HUMMING-BIRD'S WEDDING 
A little brown mother-bird sat in her nest, 
With four sleepy birdlings tucked under her breast, 
And her querulous chirrup fell ceaseless and low, 
While the wind rocked the lilac-tree nest to and fro. 



116 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

" Lie still, little nestlings ! lie still while I tell, 
For a lullaby story, a thing that befell 
Your plain little mother one midsummer morn, 
A month ago, birdies — before you were born. 

" I 'd been dozing and dreaming the long summer night, 
Till the dawn flushed its pink through the waning maon- 

light ; 
When — I wish you could hear it once ! — ■ faintly there 

fell 
All around me the silvery sound of a bell. 

" Then a chorus of bells ! So, with just half an eye, 
I peeped from the nest, and those lilies close by, 
With threads of a cobweb, were swung to and fro 
By three little rollicking midgets below. 

" Then the air was astir as with humming-birds' wings ! 
And a cloud of the tiniest, daintiest things 
That ever one dreamed of, came fluttering where 
A cluster of trumpet-flowers swayed in the air. 

" As I sat all a-tremble, my heart in my bill — 
' I will stay by the nest,' thought I, ' happen what will ; ' 
So I saw with these eyes by that trumpet-vine fair, 
A whole fairy bridal train poised in the air. 

" Such a bit of a bride ! Such a marvel of grace J 
In a shimmer of rainbows and gossamer lace ; 
No wonder the groom dropped his diamond-dust ring, 
Which a little elf-usher just caught with his wing. 

" Then into a trumpet-flower glided the train, 
And I thought (for a dimness crept over my brain, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 117 

And I tucked my head under my wing) , ' Deary me ! 
What a sight for a plain little mother like me ! ' " 

Mart A. Lathbury. 



THE HEN AND THE HONEY-BEE. 
A lazy hen, the story goes, 
Loquacious, pert, and self-conceited, 
Espied a bee upon a rose, 
And thus the busy insect greeted : 

" I Ve marked you well for many a day, 
In garden blooms and meadow clover ; 
Now here, now there, in wanton play, 
From morn till night an idle rover. 

" While I discreetly bide at home, 
A faithful wife, the best of mothers, 
About the fields you idly roam, 
Without the least regard for others. 

" While I lay eggs and hatch them out, 
You seek the flowers most sweet and fragrant \ 
And, sipping honey, stroll about, 
At best a good for nothing vagrant." 

" Nay," said the bee, " you do me wrong : 
I 'm useful, too, — perhaps you doubt it : 
Because, though toiling all day long, 
I scorn to make a fuss about it. 

" Come now with me and see my hive, 
And note how folks may work in quiet ; 



118 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

To useful arts much more alive 

Than you with all your cackling riot ! " 

John G. Saxe. 



SONG OF THE ROBIN. 
When the willows gleam along the brooks, 
And the grass grows green in sunny nooks, 
In the sunshine and the rain 
I hear the robin in the lane 
Singing " Cheerily, 
Cheer up, cheer up ; 
Cheerily, cheerily, 
Cheer up." 

But the snow is still 
Along the walls and on the hill. 
The days are cold, the nights forlorn, 
For one is here and one is gone. 

"Tut, tut. Cheerily, 

Cheer up, cheer up ; 

Cheerily, cheerily, 
Cheer up." 

"When spring hopes seem to wane, 
I hear the joyful strain — 
A song at night, a song at morn, 
A lesson deep to me is borne, 

Hearing, "Cheerily, 

Cheer up, cheer up ; 

Cheerily, cheerily, 

Cheer up." Masque of Poets. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 119 

SIR ROBIN. 
Rollicking Robin is here again. 
What does he care for the April rain ? 
Care for it ? Glad of it. Does n't he know 
That the April rain carries off the snow, 
And coaxes out leaves to shadow his nest, 
And washes his pretty red Easter vest, 
And makes the juice of the cherry sweet, 
For his hungry little robins to eat ? 

" Ha ! ha ! ha ! " hear the jolly bird laugh. 

" That is n't the best of the story, by half ! " 

Gentleman Robin, he walks up and down, 

Dressed in orange-tawney and black and brown. 

Though his eye is so proud and his step so firm, 

He can always stoop to pick up a worm. 

With a twist of his head, and a strut and a hop, 

To his Robin-wife, in the peach-tree top, 

Chirping her heart out, he calls : " My dear 

You don't earn your living ! Come here ! Come here ! 

Ha ! ha ! ha ! Life is lovely and sweet ; 

But what would it be if we 'd nothing to eat ? " 

Robin, Sir Robin, gay, red-vested knight, 

Now you have come to us, summer 's in sight. 

You never dream of the wonders you bring, — 

Visions that follow the flash of your wing. 

How all the beautiful By-and-by 

Around you and after you seems to fly ! 

Sing on, or eat on, as pleases your mind ! 

Well have you earned every morsel you find. 

" Aye ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! " whistles robin. " My dear, 
Let us all take our own choice of good cheer ! " 

Ltjct Laecom. 



120 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

THE DEAR OLD ROBINS. 
There 's a call upon the housetop, an answer from the 

plain, 
There 's a warble in the sunshine, a twitter in the rain. 
And through my heart, at sound of these, 

There comes a nameless thrill, 
As sweet as odor to the rose, 

Or verdure to the hill ; 
And all the joyous mornings 

My heart pours forth this strain : 
" God bless the dear old robins 
Who have come back again." 

For they bring a thought of summer, of dreamy, pre- 
cious days, 
Of king-cups in the summer, making a golden haze ; 
A longing for the clover blooms, 

For roses all aglow, 
For fragrant blossoms where the bees 

With droning murmurs go ; 
I dream of all the beauties 

Of summer's golden reign, 
And sing : " God keep the robins 

Who have come back again." Anon. 



ROBINS QUIT THE NEST. 
" Now, robins, my darlings, I think it is best," 
Said old mother bird, " that you all quit the nest. 
You 've grown very plump, and the nest is so small 
That really there is n't quite room for you all. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 121 

" The day is so fair and the sun is so bright, 

I think I can teach you to fly before night : 

And, when you have learned, you can go where you 

please, 
As high as the gable, — yes ! high as the trees. 

" Come, Dickey, hop out, and stand up here by me ; 
The rest of you stand on the branch of the tree ; 
Don't be frightened, my dears ; there 's no danger at all, 
For mother will not let her dear birdies fall. 

" Now all spread your wings. Ah ! but that is too high ; 
Just see how I do it. Now, all again try ! 
Ah ! that is much better. Now try it once more. 
Bravo ! much better than ever before ! 

" Now flutter about, up and down, here and there : 
My dears, you '11 be flying before you 're aware. 
Now carefully drop from the tree to the ground ; 
There 's nothing to fear, for there 's grass all around. 

" All starting but Robbie. ' Afraid you shall fall ? ' 
Ah ! don't be a craven, be bravest of all. 
Now up and now down, now away to yon spire : 
Go on : don't be frightened : fly higher and higher.' 5 

" I 've waited one hour, right here on the tree : 
Not one of my robins has come back to me. 
How soon they forget all the trouble they bring ! 
Never mind : I '11 fly up on the tree-top and sing." 

Mrs. C. F. Berry. 



122 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 



LOST — THREE LITTLE ROBINS. 
Oh, where is the boy, dressed in jacket of gray, 
Who climbed up a tree in the orchard to-day, 
And carried my three little birdies away ? 

They hardly were dressed, 

When he took from the nest 
My three little robins, and left me bereft. 

O wrens ! have you seen, in your travels to-day, 
A very small boy, dressed in jacket of gray, 
Who carried my three little robins away ? 

He had light-colored hair, 

And his feet were both bare. 
Ah me ! he was cruel and mean, I declare. 

O butterfly ! stop just one moment, I pray : 
Have you seen a boy dressed in jacket of gray, 
Who carried my three little birdies away ? 

He had pretty blue eyes, 

And was small of his size. 
Ah ! he must be wicked, and not very wise. 

O bees ! with your bags of sweet nectarine, stay ; 
Have you seen a boy dressed in jacket of gray, 
And carrying three little birdies away ? 

Did he go through the town, 

Or go sneaking aroun' 
Through hedges and byways, with head hanging down ? 

O boy with blue eyes, dressed in jacket of gray ! 
If you will bring back my three robins to-day ? 
With sweetest of music the gift I '11 repay ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 123 

I '11 sing all day long 
My merriest song, 
And I will forgive you this terrible wrong. 

Bobolinks ! did you see my birdies and me — 
How happy we were on the old apple-tree ? 
Until I was robbed of my young, as you see ? 

Oh, how can I sing, 

Unless he will bring 
My three robins back, to sleep under my wing ? 

Mrs. C. E. Berry : Songs for Our Darlings. 



THE TERRIBLE SCARECROW AND ROBINS. 
The farmer looked at his cherry-tree, 

With thick buds clustered on every bough. 
" I wish I could cheat the robins," said he. 

" If somebody only would show me how ! 

" I' 11 make a terrible scarecrow grim, 
With threatening arms and with bristling head ; 
And up in the tree I '11 fasten him, 

To frighten them half to death," he said. 

He fashioned a scarecrow all tattered and torn., — 

Oh, 't was a horrible tiling to see ! 
And very early, one summer morn, 

He set it up in his cherry-tree. 

The blossoms were white as the light sea-foam. 

The beautiful tree was a lovely sight ; 
But the scarecrow stood there so much at home 

That the birds flew screaming away in fright. 



124 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

But the robins, watching him day after day, 
"With heads on one side and eyes so bright, 

Surveying the monster, began to say, 

" Why should this fellow our prospects blight ? 

" He never moves round for the roughest weather, 
He 's a harmless, comical, tough old fellow. 

Let 's all go into the tree together, 

For he won't budge till the fruit is mellow ! " 

So up they flew ; and the sauciest pair 

'Mid the shady branches peered and perked, 

Selected a spot with the utmost care, 
And all day merrily sang and worked. 

And where do you think they built their nest ? 

In the scarecrow's pocket, if you please, 
That, half-concealed on his ragged breast, 

Made a charming covert of safety and ease ! 

By the time the cherries were ruby-red, 
A thriving family hungry and brisk, 

The whole long day on the ripe food fed. 
'T was so convenient ! they saw no risk ! 

Until the children were ready to fly, 
All undisturbed they lived in the tree ; 

For nobody thought to look at the guy 
For a robin's flourishing family ! 

Celia Thaxter. 



THE SONG SPARROW. 
A little gray bird with a speckled breast, 
Under my window has built his nest ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 125 

He sits on a twig and singeth clear 
A song that overfloweth with cheer : 

" Love ! Love ! Love ! 

Let us be happy, my love. 

Sing of cheer." 

Sweet and true are the notes of his song ; 
Sweet — and yet always full and strong, 
True — and yet they are never sad, 
Serene with that peace that maketh glad : 

"Life! Life! Life! 

Oh, what a blessing is life ; 
Life is glad ! " 

Of all the birds, I love thee best, 
Dear Sparrow, singing of joy and rest; 
Rest — but life and hope increase, 
Joy — whose spring is deepest peace : 
"Joy! Life! Love! 
Oh, to love and live is joy, — 
Joy and peace." 
Miss Harriet E. Paine : Bird Songs of New England. 



THE FIELD SPARROW, 
A bubble of music floats 

The slope of the hillside over — 
A little wandering sparrow's notes — 

On the bloom of yarrow and clover. 
And the smell of sweet-fern and the bay berry-leaf 

On his ripple of song are stealing ; 
For he is a chartered thief, 

The wealth of the fields revealing. 



126 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

One syllable, clear and soft 

As a raindrop's silvery patter, 
Or a tinkling fairy-bell, heard aloft, 

In the midst of the merry chatter 
Of robin and linnet and wren and jay, 

One syllable, oft-repeated : 
He has but a word to say, 

And of that he will not be cheated. 

The singer I have not seen ; 

But the song I arise and follow 
The brown hills over, the pastures green, 

And into the sunlit hollow. 
With the joy of a lowly heart's content 

I can feel my glad eyes glisten, 
Though he hides in his happy tent, 

While I stand outside and listen. 

This way would I also sing, 

My dear little hillside neighbor ! 
A tender carol of peace to bring 

To the sunburnt fields of labor, 
Is better than making a loud ado. 

Trill on, amid clover and yarrow : 
There 's a heart-beat echoing you, 

And blessing you, blithe little sparrow ! 

Lucy Larcom. 



THE SPARROW. 
Glad to see you, little bird ; 
'T was your little chirp I heard : 
What did you intend to say ? 
" Give me something this cold day ? 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 127 

That I will, and plenty too ; 
All the crumbs I saved for you. 
Don't be frightened : here 's a treat. 
I will wait and see you eat. 

Shocking tales I hear of you ; 
Chirp, and tell me, are they true ? 
Robbing all the summer long ; 
Don't you think it very wrong ? " 

Thomas says you steal his wheat ; 
John complains his plums you eat, 
Choose the ripest for your share, 
Never asking whose they are ? 

But I will not try to know 
What you did so long ago : 
There 's your breakfast ; eat away ; 
Come and see me every day. 

Child's Book of Poetry. 

— ♦ 

PICCOLA AND SPARROW. 

Poor, sweet Piccola ! Did you hear 
What happened to Piccola, children dear ? 
'T is seldom Fortune such favor grants 
As fell to this little maid of France. 

'T was Christmas-time, and her parents poor 
Could hardly drive the wolf from the door, 
Striving with poverty's patient pain 
Only to live till summer again. 

No gifts for Piccola ! Sad were they 

When dawned the morning of Christmas Day ; 



128 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Their little darling no joy might stir, 
St. Nicholas nothing would bring to her ! 

But Piccola never doubted at all 
That something beautiful must befall 
Every child upon Christmas Day, 
And so she slept till the dawn was gray. 

And, full of faith, when at last she woke, 
She stole to her shoe as the morning broke ; 
Such sounds of gladness filled all the air, 
'T was plain St. Nicholas had been there ! 

In rushed Piccola sweet, half wild : 

Never was seen such a joyful child. 

" See what the good saint brought ! " she cried, 

And mother and father must peep inside. 

Now such a story who ever heard ? 
There was a little shivering bird ! 
A sparrow, that in at the window flew, 
Had crept into Piccola's tiny shoe ! 

" How good Piccola must have been ! " 

She cried as happy as any queen, 

While the starving sparrow she fed and warmed, 

And danced with rapture, she was so charmed. 

Children, this story I tell to you, 
Of Piccola sweet and her bird, is true. 
In the far-off land of France, they say, 
Still do they live to this very day. 

Celia Thaxtee. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 129 

LITTLE SPARKOW. 

Touch not the little sparrow who doth build 

His home so near us. He doth follow us, 

From spot to spot, amidst the turbulent town, 

And ne'er deserts us. To all other birds 

The woods suffice, the rivers, the sweet fields, 

And Nature in her aspect mute and fair ; 

But he doth herd with men. Blithe servant ! live, 

Feed, and grow cheerful ! on my window's ledge 

I '11 leave thee every morning some fit food 

In payment for thy service. 

Barry Cornwall. 

THE SWALLOW. 

A swallow in the spring- 
Came to our granary, and beneath the eaves 
Essayed to make a nest, and there did bring 

Wet earth and straw and leaves. 

Day after day she toiled 
With patient art ; but, ere her work was crowned, 
Some sad mishap the tiny fabric spoiled, 

And dashed it to the ground. 

She found the ruin wrought ; 
But, not cast down, forth from the place she flew, 
And, with her mate, fresh earth and "grasses brought, 

And built her nest anew. 

But scarcely had she placed 
The last soft feather on its ample floor, 
When wicked hands, on chance, again laid waste, 

And wrought the ruin o'er. 



130 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

But still her heart she kept, 
And toiled again ; and last night, hearing calls, 
I looked, — and, lo ! three little swallows slept 

Within the earth-made walls. 

What truth is here, O man ! 

Hath hope been smitten in its early dawn ? 

Have clouds o'ercast thy purpose, truth, or plan ? 

Have faith, and struggle on! 

K. S. Andros. 



THE EMPEEOB'S BUtD^S-ETEST. 
Once the Emperor Charles of Spain, 

With his swarthy, grave commanders, 
I forget in what campaign, 
Long besieged, in mud and rain, 

Some old frontier town of Flanders. 

Up and down the dreary camp, 
In great boots of Spanish leather, 

Striding with a measured tramp, 

These Hidalgos, dull and damp, 

Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the weather* 

Thus as to and fro they went, 

Over upland and through hollow, 

Giving their impatience vent, 

Perched upon the Emperor's tent, 
In her nest, they spied a swallow. 

Yes, it was a swallow's nest, 

Built of clay and hair of horses, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 151 

Mane, or tail, or dragoon's crest, 
Found on hedge-rows east and west, 
After skirmish of the forces. 



Then an old Hidalgo said, 

As he twirled his gray mustachio, 
" Sure this swallow overhead 
Thinks the Emperor's tent a shed, 
And the Emperor but a Macho ! " 

Hearing his imperial name 

Coupled with those words of malice, 
Half in anger, half in shame, 
Forth the great campaigner came 

Slowly from his canvas palace. 

" Let no hand the bird molest," 

Said he solemnly, " nor hurt her ! " 

Adding then, by way of jest, 

" Golondrina is my guest, 

'T is the wife of some deserter ! " 

Swift as bowstring speed, a shaft, 

Through the camp was spread the rumor, 

And the soldiers, as they quaffed 

Flemish beer at dinner, laughed 
At the Emperor's pleasant humor. 

So unharmed and unafraid 

Sat the swallow still and brooded, 

Till the constant cannonade 

Through the walls a breach had made, 
And the siege was thus concluded. 



132 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Then the army, elsewhere bent, 
Struck its tents as if disbanding, 

Only not the Emperor's tent, 

For he ordered, ere he went, 

Very curtly, " Leave it standing ! " 

So it stood there all alone, 

Loosely flapping, torn and tattered, 

Till the brood was fledged and flown, 

Singing o'er those walls of stone 

Which the cannon-shot had shattered. 

H. W. Longfellow. 



TO A SWALLOW BUILDING UNDER OUR EAVES. 
Thou too hast travelled, little fluttering thing — 
Hast seen the world, and now thy weary wing 

Thou too must rest. 
But much, my little bird, couldst thou but tell, 
I 'd give to know why here thou lik'st so well 

To build thy nest. 

For thou hast passed fair places in thy flight ; 
A world lay all beneath thee where to light ; 

And, strange thy taste, 
Of all the varied scenes that met thine eye — 
Of all the spots for building 'neath the sky — 

To choose this waste. 

Did fortune try thee ? was thy little purse 
Perchance run low, and thou, afraid of worse, 

Felt here secuue ? 
Ah no ! thou need'st not gold, thou happy one I 
Thou know'st it not. Of all God's creatures, man 

Alone is poor. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 133 

What was it, then ? some mystic turn of thought, 
Caught under German eaves, and hither brought, 

Marring thine eye 
For the world's loveliness, till thou art grown 
A sober thing that dost but mope and moan, 

Not knowing why ? 

Nay, if thy mind be sound, I need not ask, 
Since here I see thee working at thy task 

With wing and beak. 
A well-laid^ scheme doth that small head contain, 
At which thou work'st, brave bird, with might and main, 

Nor more need'st seek. 

In truth, I rather take it thou hast got 
By instinct wise much sense about thy lot, 

And hast small care 
Whether an Eden or a desert be 
Thy home, so thou remain'st alive, and free 

To skim the air. 

God speed thee, pretty bird ; may thy small nest 
With little ones all in good time be blest. 

I love thee much ; 
For well thou managest that life of thine, 
While I ! oh, ask not what I do with mine ! 

Would I were such ! 

Mrs. Thomas Caelyle. 



THE SWALLOW, THE OWL, AND THE COCK'S 
SHRILL CLARION IN THE " ELEGY." 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, 



134 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 



Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. 

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower 
The moping owl does to the moon complain 

Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, 
Molest her ancient, solitary reign. 

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, 

Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

Gray. 



THE STATUE OVER THE CATHEDRAL DOOR. 
Forms of saints and kings are standing 

The cathedral door above ; 
Yet I saw but one among them 

Who hath soothed my soul with love. 

In his mantle, — wound about him, 
As their robes the sowers wind, — 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 135 

Bore he swallows and their fledglings, 
Flowers and weeds of every kind. 

And so stands he calm and child-like, 

High in wind and tempest wild ; 
Oh, were I like him exalted, 

I would be like him, a child 1 

And my songs, — green leaves and blossoms, — 
To the doors of heaven would bear, 

Calling, even in storm and tempest, 
Round me still these birds of air. 

H. W. Longfellow. 



THE BIRD LET LOOSE. 
The bird let loose in eastern skies, 

When hastening fondly home, 
,Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies 

Where idle warblers roam ; 

But high she shoots through air and light, 

Above all low delay, 
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, 

Nor shadow dims her way. 

So grant me, God, from every care 

And stain of passion free, 
Aloft, through Virtue's purer air, 

To hold my course to thee ! 

No sin to cloud, no lure to stay 
My soul, as home she springs ; — 



136 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Thy sunshine on her joyful way. 

Thy freedom in her wings ! T. Moore. 



THE BROWN THRUSH. 
There 's a merry brown thrush sitting up in the tree. 

" He 's singing to me ! He 's singing to me ! " 
And what does he say, little girl, little boy ? 
" Oh, the world 's running over with joy ! 
Don't you hear ? Don't you see ? 
Hush ! Look ! In my tree 
I 'm as happy as happy can be ! " 

And the brown thrush keeps singing, " A nest do you see, 

And five eggs, hid by me in the juniper-tree ? 
Don't meddle ! don't touch ! little girl, little boy, 
Or the world will lose some of its joy I 
Now I 'm glad ! now I 'm free ! 
And always shall be, 
If you never bring sorrow to me." 

So the merry brown thrush sings away in the tree, 

To you and to me, to you and to me ; 
And he sings all the day, little girl, little boy, 
" Oh, the world 's running over with joy ! 
Don't you know ? don't you see ? 
But long it won't be, 
Unless we are as good as can be ? " Lucy Larcom. 



THE GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH. 
In the hot midsummer noontide, 
When all other birds are sleeping, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 137 

Still one in the silent forest, 

Like a sentry, watch in keeping, 
Singing in the pine-tops spicy : 
" I see, / see, I see, I SEE." 

No one ever sees you, atom ! 

You are hidden too securely. 
I have sought for hours to find you. 
It is but to tease us, surely, 

That you sing in pine-tops spicy : 
" I see, / see, i" see, / SEE." 
Harriet E. Paine : Bird Songs of New England. 



THE THRUSH. 

Beside the cottage in which Ellen dwelt 
Stands a tall ash-tree ; to whose topmost twig 
A thrush resorts, and annually chants, 
At morn and evening from that naked perch, 
While all the undergrove is thick with leaves, 
A time-beguiling ditty, for delight 
Of his fond partner, silent in the nest. 

" Ah why," said Ellen, sighing to herself, 
" Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge, 
And nature that is kind in woman's breast, 
And reason that in man is wise and good, 
And fear of Him who is a righteous Judge, — 
Why do not these prevail for human life, 
To keep two hearts together, that began 
Their spring-time with one love, and that have need 
Of mutual pity and forgiveness, sweet 
To grant, or be received ; while that poor bird, — 
Oh come and hear him ! Thou who hast to me 



138 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Been faithless, hear him, though a lowly creature, 
One of God's simple children that yet know not 
The universal Parent, how he sings 
As if he wished the firmament of heaven 
/Should listen, and give back to him the voice 
Of his triumphant constancy and love ; 
The proclamation that he makes, how far 
His darkness doth transcend our fickle light ! " 

Wordsworth. 



THE AZIOLA. 
" Do you not hear the Aziola cry ? 
Methinks she must be nigh," 
Said Mary, as we sate 
In dusk, ere stars were lit or candles brought, 

And I, who thought, 
This Aziola was some tedious woman, 

Asked, " Who is Aziola ? " How elate 
I felt to know that it was nothing human, 
No mockery of myself to fear or hate ; 
And Mary saw my soul, 
And laughed and said, " Disquiet yourself not, 
'T is nothing but a little downy owL" 

Sad Aziola ! many an eventide 

Thy music I had heard 
By wood and stream, meadow and mountainside, 

And fields and marshes wide, 
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird, 

The soul ever stirred ; 
Unlike and far sweeter than them all. 

Sad Aziola ! from that moment I 
Loved thee and thy sad cry. Shelley. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 139 

THE MARTEN. 

This guest of summer, 
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, 
By his loved niansionry. that the heaven's breath 
Smells wooingly here. Xo jutty. frieze. 
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird 
Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle. 
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed 
The air is delicate. 

Macbeth, Act 1, Sc. 6. 

— ♦— — 

JUDGE YOU AS YOU ARE? 

How would you be 
If He which is the top of Judgment should 
But judge you as you are ? Oh. think on that, 
And Mercy then will breathe within your lips 
Like man new made. 

Measure for Measure, Act 2, Sc. 2. 



ROBERT OF LINCOLN. 
Merrily singing on briar and weed, 

Near to the nest of his little dame. 
Over the mountain-side or mead, 

Robert of Lincoln is telling his name. 
Bob-o'-link. Bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Snug and safe in that nest of ours, 
Hidden among the summer flowers ; 
Chee, chee, chee. 

Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, 

Wearing a bright-black wedding coat ; 



140 VOICES FOR TEE SPEECHLESS. 

White are his shoulders, and white his crest, 
Hear him call his merry note : 

Bob-o'-link, Bob-o'-link, 

Spink, spank, spink ; 
Look what a nice new coat is mine, 
Sure there was never a bird so fine ; 

Chee, chee, chee. 

Six white eggs on a bed of hay, 

Freckled with purple, a pretty sight ! 

There as the mother sits all day, 

Robert is singing with all his might. 

Nice good wife, that never goes out, 

Keeping house while I frolic about. 

Summer wanes, — the children are grown ; 

Fun and frolic no more he knows, 
Robert of Lincoln 's a humdrum crone : 

Off he flies, and we sing as he goes, — 
" When you can pipe in that merry old strain, 
Robert of Lincoln come back again." 

W. C. Bryant. 



MY DOVES. 
My little doves have left a nest 

Upon an Indian tree, 
Whose leaves fantastic take their rest 

Or motion from the sea ; 
For, ever there, the sea-winds go 
With sunlit paces to and fro. 

The tropic flowers looked up to it, 
The tropic stars looked down, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 141 

And there my little doves did sit, 

With feathers softly brown, 
And glittering eyes that showed their right 
To general Nature's deep delight. 

My little doves were ta'en away 

From that glad nest of theirs, 
Across an ocean rolling gray, 

And tempest clouded airs. 
My little doves, — who lately knew 
The sky and wave by warmth and blue ! 

And now, within the city prison, 

In mist and chillness pent, 
With sudden upward look they listen 

For sounds of past content — 
For lapse of water, swell of breeze, 
Or nut-fruit falling from the trees. 

Soft falls their chant as on the nest 

Beneath the sunny zone ; 
For love that stirred it in their breast 

Has not aweary grown, 
And 'neath the city's shade can keep 
The well of music clear and deep. 

So teach ye me the wisest part, 

My little doves ! to move 
Along the city-ways with heart 

Assured by holy love, 
And vocal with such songs as own 
A fountain to the world unknown. 

Mrs. Browning. 



142 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

THE DOVES OF VENICE. 
I stood in the quiet piazza, 

Where come rude noises never ; 
But the feet of children, the wings of doves, 

Are sounding on forever. 

And the cooing of their soft voices, 
And the touch of the rippling sea, 

And the ringing clock of the armed knight, 
Came through the noon to me. 

While their necks with rainbow gleaming, 
'Neath the dark old arches shone, 

And the campanile's shadow long, 
Moved o'er the pavement stone. 

And from every " coigne of vantage," 
Where lay some hidden nest, 

They fluttered, peeped, and glistened forth, 
Sacred, serene, at rest. 

I thought of thy saint, O Venice ! 

Who said in his tenderness, 
" I love thy birds, my Father dear, 

Our lives they cheer and bless ! 

" For love is not for men only ; 

To the tiniest little things 
Give room to nestle in our hearts ; 

Give freedom to all wings ! " 

And the lovely, still piazza, 

Seemed with his presence blest, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 143 

And I, and the children, and the doves, 
Partakers of his rest. 

Laura Winthrop Johnson. 



SONG OF THE DOVE. 
There sitteth a dove so white and fair, 

All on the lily spray, 
And she listeneth how, to Jesus Christ, 

The little children pray. 

Lightly she spreads her friendly wings, 

And to heaven's gate hath sped, 
And unto the Father in heaven she bears 

The prayers which the children have said. 

And back she comes from heaven's gate, 
And brings — that dove so mild — 

From the Father in heaven, who hears her speak, 
A blessing for every child. 

Then, children, lift up a pious prayer, 

It hears whatever you say, 
That heavenly dove, so white and fair, 

That sits on the lily spray. 

Frederika Bremer. 

— ♦ — 

"WHAT THE QUAIL SAYS. 
Whistles the quail from the covert, 

Whistles with all his might, 
High and shrill, day after day, 
" Children, tell me, what does he say ? " 

Ginx — (the little one, bold and bright, 



144 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Sure that he understands aright) — 

" He says, ' Bob White ! Bob White ! ' " 

Calls the quail from the cornfield, 

Thick with stubble set ; 
Misty rain-clouds floating by 
Hide the blue of the August sky. 
" What does he call now, loud and plain ? " 
Gold Locks — " That 's a sign of rain ! 

He calls ' More wet ! more wet ! ' " 

Pipes the quail from the fence-top, 

Perched there full in sight, 
Quaint and trim, with quick, bright eye, 
Almost too round and plump to fly, 
Whistling, calling, piping clear, 
" What do / think he says ? My dear, 

He says ' Do right ! do right ! '" 

Mrs. Clara Dott Bates. 



CHICK-A-DEE-DEE, 

The snowflakes are drifting round windows and door ; 
The chilly winds whistle " Remember the poor ; " 
Remember the birds, too, out on yonder tree ; 
I hear one just singing a Chick-a-dee-dee. 

Throw out a few crumbs ! you've enough and to spare ; 
They need through the winter your kindness and care ; 
And they will repay you with heartiest glee, 
By constantly singing a Chick-a-dee-dee. 

Each morning you '11 see them go hopping around, 
Though little they find on the cold frozen ground ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 145 

Yet never disheartened ! on each bush and tree, 
They merrily carol a Chick-a-dee-dee. 

Oh ! sweet little songster ; so fearless and bold ! 
Your little pink feet — do they never feel cold ? 
Have you a warm shelter at night for your bed, 
Where under your wing you can tuck your brown head ? 

Though cold grows the season you seem not to care, 
But cheerily warble though frosty the air ; 
Though short are the days, and the nights are so long, 
And most of your playmates are scattered and gone. 

The snownakes are drifting round window and door, 
And chilly winds whistle behind and before, 
Yet never discouraged, on each bush and tree, 
You '11 hear the sweet carol of Chick-a-dee-dee. 

Mrs. C. F. Beery. 



THE LINNET. 
What is the happiest morning song ? 

The Linnet's. He warbles, blithe and free, 

In the sunlit top of the old elm-tree, 
Joyous and fresh, and hopeful and strong. 

The trees are not high enough, little bird ; 
You mount and wheel, and eddy and soar, 
And with every turn yet more and more 

Your wonderful, ravishing music is heard. 

A crimson speck in the bright blue sky, 

Do you search for the secret of heaven's deep glow ? 
10 



146 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Is not heaven within, when you carol so ? 
Then why, dear bird, must you soar so high? 

He answers nothing, but soars and sings ; 

He heeds no doubtful question like this. 

He only bubbles over with bliss, 
And sings, and mounts on shining wings. 

Harriet E. Paine : Bird Songs of New England. 



HEAR THE WOODLAND LINNET. 
Books ! 't is a dull and endless strife : 

Come, hear the woodland Linnet, 
How sweet his music ! on my life, 

There 's more of wisdom in it. 

And hark ! how blithe the Throstle sings ? 

He, too, is no mean preacher : 
Come forth into the light of things, 

Let Nature be your teacher. 

Sweet is the love which Nature brings : 

Our meddling intellect 
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things : 

We murder to dissect. 

Enough of Science and of Art : 

Close up these barren leaves : 
Come forth, and bring with you a heart 

That watches and receives. 

W. Wordsworth. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 147 

I 

' THE PAKEOT. 

A TRUE STORY. 

The deep affections of the breast 

That heaven to living things imparts, 
Are not exclusively possessed 
By human hearts. 

A Parrot, from the Spanish main, 

Full young and early caged came o'er, 
With bright wings, to the bleak domain 
Of Mulla's shore. 

To spicy groves where he had won 
His plumage of resplendent hue, 
His native fruits, and skies, and sun, 
He bade adieu. 

For these he changed the smoke of turf, 

A heathery land and misty sky, 
And turned on rocks and raging surf 
His golden eye. 

But petted in our climate cold, 

He lived and chattered many a day : 
Until with age, from green and gold 
His wings grew gray. 

At last when blind, and seeming dumb, 

He scolded, laughed, and spoke no more, 
A Spanish stranger chanced to come 
To Mulla's shore ; 



148 VOICES FOR TEE SPEECHLESS. 

He hailed the bird in Spanish speech, 
The bird in Spanish speech replied ; 
Flapped round the cage with joyous screech, 

Dropt down, and died. T. Campbell. 



THE COMMON QUESTION. 
Behind us at our evening meal 

The gray bird ate his nil, 
Swung downward by a single claw, 

And wiped his hooked bill. 

He shook his wings and crimson tail, 

And set his head aslant, 
And, in his sharp, impatient way, 

Asked, " What does Charlie want ? " 

" Fie, silly bird ! " I answered, " tuck 
Your head beneath your wing, 
And go to sleep ; " — but o'er and o'er 
He asked the selfsame thing. 

Then, smiling, to myself I said : — 
How like are men and birds ! 

We all are saying what he says, 
In actions or in words. 

The boy with whip and top and drum, 
The girl with hoop and doll, 

And men with lands and houses, ask 
The question of Poor Poll. 

However full, with something more 
We fain the bag would cram ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 149 

We sigh above our crowded nets 
For fish that never swam. 



No bounty of indulgent Heaven 

The vague desire can stay ; 
Self-love is still a Tartar mill 

For grinding prayers alway. 

The dear God hears and pities all ; 

He knoweth all our wants ; 
And what we blindly ask of Him 

His love withholds or grants. 

And so I sometimes think our prayers 

Might well be merged in one ; 
And nest and perch and hearth and church 

Repeat, " Thy wiU be done." 

John Greenleaf Whittier. 



WHY NOT DO IT, SIR, TO-DAY? 
" Why, so I will, you noisy bird, 
This very day I '11 advertise you, 
Perhaps some busy ones may prize you. 
A fine-tongued parrot as was ever heard, 
I '11 word it thus — set forth all charms about you, 
And say no family should be without you." 

Thus far a gentleman addressed a bird ; 
Then to his friend : " An old procrastinator, 
Sir, I am : do you wonder that I hate her ? 

Though she but seven words can say, 

Twenty and twenty times a day 



150 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

She interferes with all my dreams, 
My projects, plans, and airy schemes, 
Mocking my foible to my sorrow : 
I '11 advertise this bird to-morrow." 

To this the bird seven words did say : 
" Why not do it, sir, to-day ? " 

Charles and Mart Lamb. 



TO A REDBREAST. 
Little bird, with bosom red, 
Welcome to my humble shed ! 
Courtly domes of high degree 
Have no room for thee and me ; 
Pride and pleasure's fickle throng 
Nothing mind an idle song. 

Daily near my table steal, 
While I pick my scanty meal : — 
Doubt not, little though there be, 
But I '11 cast a crumb to thee ; 
Well rewarded, if I spy 
Pleasure in thy glancing eye ; 
See thee, when thou 'st eat thy fill, 
Plume thy breast and wipe thy bill. 

Come, my feathered Mend, again ? 
Well thou know'st the broken pane : — 
Ask of me thy daily store. J. Langhorne. 



PHCEBE. 
Ere pales in heaven the morning star, 
A bird, the loneliest of its kind, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 151 

Hears dawn's faint footfall from afar, 
While all its mates are dumb and blind- 
It is a wee, sad-colored thing, 
As shy and secret as a maid, 
That, ere in choir the robins ring, 
Pipes its own name like one afraid. 

It seems pain-prompted to repeat 
The story of some ancient ill, 
But Phcebe ! Phoebe ! sadly sweet, 
Is all it says, and then is still. 

It calls and listens : earth and sky, 
Hushed by the pathos of its fate, 
Listen : no whisper of reply 
Comes from the doom-dissevered mate. 

Phcebe ! it calls and calls again, 
And Ovid, could he but have heard, 
Had hung a legendary pain 
About the memory of the bird ; 

A pain articulate so long 
In penance of some mouldered crime, 
Whose ghost still flies the furies' thong 
Down the waste solitudes of time ; 



Phoebe ! is all it has to say 
In plaintive cadence o'er and o'er, 
Like children that have lost their way 
And know their names, but nothing more. 



152 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Is it in type, since Nature's lyre 
Vibrates to every note in man, 
Of that insatiable desire 
Meant to be so, since life began ? 

I, in strange lands at gray of dawn, 
Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint 
Through memory's chambers deep withdrawn 
Renew its iterations faint. 

So nigh ! yet from remotest years 
It seems to draw its magic, rife 
With longings unappeased, and tears 
Drawn from the very source of life. 

James Russell Lowell : in Scribner 



TO THE STORK. 

Welcome, O Stork ! that dost wing 
Thy flight from the far-away ! 
Thou hast brought us the signs of Spring, 
Thou hast made our sad hearts gay. 

Descend, O Stork ! descend 

Upon our roof to rest ; 
In our ash-tree, O my friend, 

My darling, make thy nest. 

To thee, O Stork, I complain, 

O Stork, to thee I impart 
The thousand sorrows, the pain 

And aching of my heart. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 153 

When thou away didst go, 

Away from this tree of ours, 
The withering winds did blow, 

And dried up all the flowers. 

Dark grew the brilliant sky, 

Cloudy and dark and drear ; 
They were breaking the snow on high, 

And winter was drawing near. 

From Varaca's rocky wall, 

From the rock of Varaca unrolled, 

The snow came and covered all, 
And the green meadow was cold. 

O Stork, our garden with snow 

Was hidden away and lost, 
And the rose-trees that in it grow 

Were withered by snow and frost. 

H. W. Longfellow. 

— ♦ — 

\ THE STORKS OF DELFT. 

The tradition of the storks at Delft (Holland), is, 
however, still alive, and no traveller writes about the 
city without remembering them. 

The fact occurred at the time of the great fire which 
ruined almost all the city. There were in Delft in- 
numerable storks' nests. It must be understood that the 
stork is the favorite bird of Holland ; the bird of good 
fortune, like the swallow; welcome to all, because it 
makes war upon toads and frogs ; that the peasants 
plant poles with circular floor of wood on top to attract 
them to make their nests, and that in some towns they 



154 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

may be seen walking in the streets. At Delft they were 
in great numbers. When the fire broke out, which was 
on the 3d May, the young storks were fledged, but 
could not yet fly. Seeing the fire approach, the parent 
storks attempted to carry their young out of danger ; 
but they were too heavy ; and, after having tried all 
sorts of desperate efforts, the poor birds were forced to 
give it up. 

They might have saved themselves and have aban- 
doned the little ones to their fate, ,as human creatures 
often do under similar circumstances. But they stayed 
upon their nests, gathered their little ones about them, 
covered them with their wings, as if to retard, as long as 
possible, the fatal moment, and so awaited death, in that 
loving and noble attitude. 

And who shall say if, in the horrible dismay and flight 
from the flames, that example of self-sacrifice, that volun- 
tary maternal martyrdom, may not have given strength 
and courage to some weak soul who was about to aban- 
don those who had need of him. 

De Amicis' Holland. 
— • — - # 

THE PHEASANT. 

See ! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs 
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings. 
Short is his joy ; he feels the fiery wound, 
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. 
Ah ! what avail his glossy, varying dyes, 
His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes, 
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold, 
His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold ! 

Pope. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 155 

THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD. 
Silent are all the sounds of day ; 

Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets, 
And the cry of the herons winging their way 

O 'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets. 

Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass 

To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes, 
Sing him the song of the green morass, 

And the tides that water the reeds and rushes. 

Sing him the mystical song of the Hern, 

And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking ; 

For only a sound of lament we discern, 

And cannot interpret the words you are speaking. 

Sing of the air, and the wild delight 

Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you, 

The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight 

Through the drift of the floating mists that enfold you ; 

Of the landscape lying so far below, 

With its towns and rivers and desert places ; 

And the splendor of light above, and the glow 
Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces. 

Ask him if songs of the Troubadours, 

Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter, 
Sound in his ears more sweet than yours, 

And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better. 

H. W. Longfellow. 



156 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

W ALTER VON DEE VOGELWEID. 

Vogelweid the Minnesinger, 

"When he left this world of ours, 

Laid his body in the cloister, 

Under Wiirtzburg's minster towers. 

And he gave the monks his treasures, 
Gave them all with this behest : 

They should feed the birds at noontide 
Daily on his place of rest ; 

Saying, " From these wandering minstrels 
I have learned the art of song ; 

Let me now repay the lessons 

They have taught so well and long." 

Thus the bard of love departed ; 

And, fulfilling his desire, 
On his tomb the birds were feasted 

By the children of the choir. 

Day by day, o'er tower and turret, 
In foul weather and in fair, 

Day by day, in vaster number, 
Flocked the poets of the air. 

On the tree whose heavy branches 
Overshadowed all the place, 

On the pavement, on the tombstone, 
On the poet's sculptured face, 

On the crossbars of each window, 
On the lintel of each door, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 157 

They renewed the "War of Wartburg, 
Which the bard had fought before. 

There they sang their merry carols, 

Sang their lauds on every side ; 
And the name their voices uttered 

Was the name of Vogehveid. 

Till at length the portly abbot 

Murmured, " Why this waste of food ? 

Be it changed to loaves henceforward 
For our fasting brotherhood." 

Then in vain o'er tower and turret, 
From the walls and woodland nests, 

When the minster bells rang noontide, 
Gathered the unwelcome guests. 

Then in vain, with cries discordant, 
Clamorous round the Gothic spire, 

Screamed the feathered Minnesingers 
For the children of the choir. 

Time has long effaced the inscriptions 

On the cloister's funeral stones, 
And tradition only tells us 

Where repose the poet's bones. 

But around the vast cathedral, 

By sweet echoes multiplied, 
Still the birds repeat the legend, 

And the name of Vogehveid. 

H. W. Longfellow. 



158 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

THE LEGEND OF THE CROSS-BILL. 
On the cross the dying Saviour 

Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm, 

Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling 

In his pierced and bleeding palm. 

And by all the world forsaken, 
Sees he how with zealous care 

At the ruthless nail of iron 
A little bird is striving there. 

Stained with blood, and never tiring, 
With its beak it does not cease, 

From the cross 't would free the Saviour, 
Its Creator's son release. 

And the Saviour speaks in mildness : 
" Blest be thou of all the good ! 

Bear, as token of this moment, 
Marks of blood and holy rood ! " 

And that bird is called the cross-bill ; 

Covered all with blood so clear, 
In the groves of pine it singeth 

Songs, like legends, strange to hear. 

H. W. Longfellow. 



PRETTY BIRDS. 
Among the orchards and the groves, 
While summer days are fair and long, 
You brighten every tree and bush, 
You fill the air with loving song. Nursery. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 159 



THE LITTLE BIRD SITS. 
And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there 's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace : 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
And lets his illumined being o'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? 
James Russell Lowell. 



THE LIVING SWAN. 
Then some one came who said, " My Prince had shot 
A swan, which fell among the roses here, 
He bids me pray you send it. Will you send ? " 



160 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

" Nay," quoth Siddartha, " if the bird were dead 

To send it to the slayer might be well, 

But the swan lives ; my cousin hath but killed 

The god-like speed which throbbed in this white wing.' 

And Devadatta answered, " The wild thing, 

Living or dead, is his who fetched it down ; 

'T was no man's in the clouds, but fall'n 't is mine, 

Give me my prize, fair Cousin." Then our Lord 

Laid the swan's neck beside his own smooth cheek 

And gravely spake, " Say no ! the bird is mine, 

The first of myriad things which shall be mine 

By right of mercy and love's lordliness. 

For now I know, by what within me stirs, 

That I shall teach compassion unto men 

And be a speechless world's interpreter, 

Abating this accursed flood of woe, 

Not man's alone ; but, if the Prince disputes, 

Let him submit this matter to the wise 

And we will wait their word." So was it done ; 

In full divan the business had debate, 

And many thought this thing and many that, 

Till there arose an unknown priest who said, 

" If life be aught, the savior of a life 

Owns more the living thing than he can own 

Who sought to slay — the slayer spoils and wastes, 

The cherisher sustains, give him the bird : " 

Which judgment all found just. Light of Asia. 



THE STORMY PETREL. 
A thousand miles from land are we, 
Tossing about on the roaring sea — 
From billow to bounding billow cast, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 161 

Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast. 

The sails are scattered abroad like weeds ; 

The strong masts shake like quivering reeds ; 

The mighty cables and iron chains ; 

The hull, which all earthly strength disdains, — 

They strain and they crack ; and hearts like stone 

Their natural, hard, proud strength disown. 

Up and down ! — up and down ! 

From the base of the wave to the billow's crown, 

And amid the flashing and feathery foam, 

The stormy petrel finds a home. 

A home, if such a place may be 

For her who lives on the wide, wide sea, 

On the craggy ice, in the frozen air, 

And only seeketh her rocky lair 

To warm her young, and to teach them to spring 

At once o'er the waves on their stormy wing ! 

O'er the deep ! — o'er the deep ! 

Where the whale, and the shark, and the sword-fish 

sleep — 
Outflying the blast and the driving rain, 
The petrel telleth her tale — in vain ; 
For the mariner curseth the warning bird 
Which bringeth him news of the storm unheard ! 
Ah ! thus does the prophet of good or ill 
Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still ; 
Yet he ne'er falters — so, petrel, spring 
Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing ! 

Barky Cornwall. 
11 



162 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

TO THE CUCKOO. 
Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove ! 

Thou messenger of Spring ! 
Now heaven repairs thy rural seat, 

And woods thy welcome sing. 

What time the pea puts on the bloom, 

Thou fliest thy vocal vale, 
An annual guest in other lands, 

Another Spring to hail. 

Delightful visitant ! with thee 

I hail the time of flowers, 
And hear the sound of music sweet 

From birds among the bowers. 

Sweet bird ! thy bower is ever green, 

Thy sky is ever clear : 
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, 

No Winter in thy year ! 

Oh, could I fly, I 'd fly with thee ! 

We 'd make, with joyful wing, 
Our annual visit o'er the globe, 

Attendants on the Spring. John Logan. 



BIRDS AT DAWK 
The beautiful day is breaking, 
The first faint line of light 
Parts the shadows of the night, 
And a thousand birds are waking. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 163 

I hear the Hairbird's slender trill, — 

So fine and perfect it doth fill 

The whole sweet silence with its thrill. 

A rosy flush creeps up the sky, 

The birds begin their symphony. 

I hear the clear, triumphant voice 

Of the Robin, bidding the world rejoice. 

The Vireos catch the theme of the song, 

And the Baltimore Oriole bears it along, 

"While from Sparrow, and Thrush, and Wood Pewee, 

And, deep in the pine-trees, the Chickadee, 

There 's an undercurrent of harmony. 

The Linnet sings like a magic flute, 
The Lark and Bluebird touch the lute, 
The Starling pipes to the shining morn 
With the vibrant note of the joyous horn, 

The splendid Jay 

Is the trumpeter gay, 
The Kingfisher, sounding his rattle, — he 
May the player on the cymbals be, 
The Cock, saluting the sun's first ray, 
Is the bugler sounding a reveille. 
" Caw ! Caw ! " cries the crow, and his grating tone 
Completes the chord like a deep trombone. 

But, above them all, the Robin sings ; 
His song is the very soul of day, 
And all black shadows troop away 
While, pure and fresh, his music rings : 
" Light is here ! 
Never fear ! 



164 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Day is near ! 
My clear ! " 

Miss Harriet E. Paine. 



EVENING SONGS. 
Gliding at sunset in my boat, 
I hear the Veery's bubbling note ; 
And a Robin, flying late, 
Sounds the home-call to his mate. 

Then the sun sinks low 

In the western glow, 
And the birds go to rest. But hush ! 
Far off sings the sweet Wood-Thrush. 
He sings — and waits — and sings again, 
The liquid notes of that holy strain. 

He ceases, and all the world is still : 
And then the moon climbs over the hill, 
And I hear the cry of the Whip-poor-will. 

Tranquil, I lay me down to sleep, 
While the summer stars a vigil keep ; 
And I hear from the Sparrow a gentle trill, 
Which means, 

" Good Night ; Peace and Good Will." 

Miss Harriet E. Paine. 



LITTTE BROWN BIRD. 
A little brown bird sat on a stone ; 
The sun shone thereon, but he was alone. 
" O pretty bird, do you not weary 
Of this gay summer so long and dreary ? " 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 165 

The little bird opened his black bright eyes, 
And looked at me with great surprise ; 
Then his joyous song broke forth, to say, 
" Weary of what ? I can sing all day." 

Posies for Children. 

— • — 

LIFE'S SIGN. 
Wouldst thou the life of souls discern, 

Not human wisdom nor divine 
Helps thee by aught beside to learn, 
Love is life's only sign. 

Keble. 



A BIRD'S MINISTRY. 

From his home in an Eastern bungalow, 
In sight of the everlasting snow 
Of the grand Himalayas, row on row, 
Thus wrote my friend : — 

" I had travelled far 
From the Afghan towers of Candahar, 
Through the sand-white plains of Sinde-Sagar ; 

" And once, when the daily march was o'er, 

As tired I sat in my tented door, 

Hope failed me, as never it failed before. 

" In swarming city, at wayside fane, 

By the Indus' bank, on the scorching plain, 

I had taught, — and my teaching all seemed vain. 

" No glimmer of light (I sighed) appears ; 
The Moslem's Fate and the Buddhist's fears 
Have gloomed their worship this thousand years. 



166 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

" ' For Christ and his truth I stand alone 
In the midst of millions : a sand-grain blown 
Against your temple of ancient stone 

" ' As soon may level it ! ' Faith forsook 
My soul, as I turned on the pile to look ; 
Then, rising, my saddened way I took 

To its lofty roof, for the cooler air : 

I gazed, and marvelled ; — how crumbled were 

The walls I had deemed so firm and fair ! ^ 

For, wedged in a rift of the massive stone, 
Most plainly rent by its roots alone, 
A beautiful peepul-tree had grown : 

Whose gradual stress would still expand 

The crevice, and topple upon the sand 

The temple, while o'er its wreck should stand 

The tree in its living verdure ! — Who 

Could compass the thought ? — The bird that flew 

Hitherward, dropping a seed that grew, 

Did more to shiver this ancient wall 

Than earthquake, — war, — simoon, — or all 

The centuries, in their lapse and fall ! 

Then I knelt by the riven granite there, 
And my soul shook off its weight of care, 
As my voice rose clear on the tropic air : — 

" The living seeds I have dropped remain 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 167 

In the cleft : Lord, quicken with dew and rain, 
Tlien temple and mosque shall be rent in twain ! " 

Margaret J. Preston. 



OF BIRDS. 
See, Christ makes the birds our masters and teach- 
ers ! so that a feeble sparrow, to our great and perpetual 
shame, stands in the gospel as a doctor and preacher to 
the wisest of men- Martin Luther. 



BIRDS IN SPRING. 
Listen ! What a sudden rustle 

Fills the air 3 
All the birds are in a bustle 

Everywhere- 
Such a ceaseless croon and twitter 

Overhead ! 
Such a flash of wings that glitter 

Wide outspread ! 
Far away I hear a drumming, — 

Tap, tap, tap ! 
Can the woodpecker be coming 

After sap ? 
Butterflies are hovering over 

(Swarms on swarms) 
Yonder meadow-patch of clover, 

Like snow-storms. 
Through the vibrant air a-tingle 

Buzzingly, 
Throbs and o'er me sails a single 

Bumble-bee. 



168 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Lissom swayings make the willows 

One bright sheen, 
Which the breeze puffs out in billows 

Foamy green. 
From the marshy brook that 's smoking 

In the fog 
I can catch the crool and croaking 

Of a frog. 
Dogwood stars the slopes are studding, 

And I see 
Blooms upon the purple-budding 

Judas-tree. 
Aspen tassels thick are dropping 

All about, 
And the alder-leaves are cropping 

Broader out ; 
Mouse-ear tufts the hawthorn sprinkle, 

Edged with rose ; 
The park bed of periwinkle 

Fresher grows. 
Up and down are midges dancing 

On the grass : 
How their gauzy wings are glancing 

As they pass ! 
What does all this haste and hurry 

Mean, I pray — 
All this out-door flush and flurry 

Seen to-day ? 
This presaging stir and humming, 

Thrill and call? 
Mean ? It means that spring is coming ; 

That is all ! Margaret J. Preston. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 169 

THE CANARY IN HIS CAGE. 
Sing away, ay, sing away, 

Merry little bird, 
Always gayest of the gay, 
Though a woodland roundelay 

You n^'er sung nor heard ; 
Though your life from youth to age 
Passes in a narrow cage. 

Near the window wild birds fly, 

Trees are waving round ; 
Fair things everywhere you spy 
Through the glass pane's mystery, 

Your small life 's small bound : 
Nothing hinders your desire 
But a little gilded wire. 

Like a human soul you seem 

Shut in golden bars : 
Placed amid earth's sunshine stream, 
Singing to the morning beam, 

Dreaming 'neath the stars ; 
Seeing all life's pleasures clear, — 
But they never can come near. 

Never ! Sing, bird-poet mine, 

As most poets do ; — 
Guessing by an instinct fine 
At some happiness divine 

Which they never knew. 
Lonely in a prison bright 
Hymning for the world's delight. 



170 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Yet, my birdie, you 're content 

In your tiny cage : 
Not a carol thence is sent 
But for happiness is meant — 

Wisdom pure as sage : 
Teaching the pure poet's part 
Is to sing with merry heart. 

So lie down, thou peevish pen ; 

Eyes, shake off all tears ; 
And, my wee bird, sing again : 
I '11 translate your song to men 

In these future years. 
*' Howsoe'er thy lot 's assigned, 
Meet it with a cheerful mind." 

Mrs. Dinah Maria (Mulock) Craik. 



■WHO STOLE THE BIRD'S-NEST. 
Te-whit ! te-whit ! te-whee ! 
"Will you listen to me ? 
Who stole four eggs I laid, 
And the nice nest I made ? 

Not I, said the cow, moo-oo ! 
Such a thing I 'd never do. 
I gave for you a wisp of hay, 
And did not take your nest away. 
Not I, said the cow, moo-oo ! 
Such a thing I'd never do. 

Not I, said the dog, bow-wow ! 

I would n't be so mean as that> now. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 171 

I gave hairs the nest to make, 
But the nest I did not take. 
Not I, said the dog, bow-wow ! 
I would n't be so mean as that, now. 

Not I, said the sheep, Oh no ! 
I would n't treat a poor bird so J 
I gave the wool the nest to line, 
But the nest was none of mine. 
Baa ! baa ! said the sheep ; Oh no, 
I would n't treat a poor bird so. 

I would not rob a bird, 

Said little Mary Green ; 
I think I never heard 

Of any thing so mean. 
'T is very cruel, too, 

Said little Alice Neal ; 
I wonder if she knew 

How sad the bird would feel ? 

A little boy hung down his head, 
And went and hid behind the bed, 
For he stole that pretty nest 
From poor little yellow-breast ; 
And he felt so full of shame 
He did n't like to tell his name. 

Hymns for Mother and Children. 



WHO STOLE THE EGGS? 
" Oh, what is the matter with Robin, 

That makes her cry round here all day ? 



172 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

I think she must be in great trouble," 
Said Swallow to little Blue Jay. 

" I know why the Robin is crying," 
Said Wren, with a sob in her breast ; 

" A naughty bold robber has stolen 
Three little blue eggs from her nest. 

" He carried them home in his pocket ; 

I saw him, from up in this tree : 
Ah me ! how my little heart fluttered 

For fear he would come and rob me ! " 

" Oh ! what little boy was so wicked ? " 
Said Swallow, beginning to cry ; 

" I would n't be guilty of robbing 
A dear little bird's-nest — not I." 

" Nor I ! " said the birds in a chorus : 
" A cruel and mischievous boy ! 

I pity his father and mother : 

He surely can't give them much joy. 

" I guess he forgot what a pleasure 
The dear little robins all bring, 

In early spring-time and in summer, 
By the beautiful songs that they sing. 

" I guess he forgot that the rule is, 
To do as you 'd be always done by ; 

I guess he forgot that from heaven 
There looks down an All-seeing Eye." 

Mrs. C. F. Beery. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 173 

WHAT THE BIRDS SAY. 
When they chatter together, — the robins and sparrows, 

Bluebirds and bobolinks, — all the day long ; 
What do they talk of ? The sky and the sunshine, 

The state of the weather, the last pretty song ; 

Of love and of friendship, and all the sweet trifles 
That go to make bird-life so careless and free ; 

The number of grubs in the apple-tree yonder, 
The promise of fruit in the big cherry-tree ; 

Of matches in prospect : — how Robin and Jenny 
Are planning together to build them a nest ; 

How Bobolink left Mrs. Bobolink moping 

At home, and went off on a lark, with the rest. 

Such mild little slanders ! such innocent gossip ! 

Such gay little coquetries, pretty and bright ! 
Such happy love makings ! such talks in the orchard ! 

Such chatterings at daybreak ! such whisperings at 
night ! 

O birds in the tree-tops ! O robins and sparrows ! 
O bluebirds and bobolinks ! what would be May 
Without your glad presence, — the songs that you sing 
us, 
And all the sweet nothings we fancy you say ? 

Caroline A. Mason. 



Sweet Mercy is Nobility's true badge. 

Titus Andronicus, Act 1, Sc. 2. 



174 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

■ + THE WKEN'S NEST. 

I took the wren's nest : 

Heaven forgive me ! 
Its merry architects so small 
Had scarcely finished their wee hall 
That, empty still, and neat and fair, 
Hung idly in the summer air. 
The mossy walls, the dainty door, 
Where Love should enter and explore, 
And Love sit carolling outside, 
And Love within chirp multiplied ; — 

I took the wren's nest ; 

Heaven forgive me ! 

How many hours of happy pains 
Through early frosts and April rains, 
How many songs at eve and morn 
O'er springing grass and greening corn, 
What labors hard through sun and shade 
Before the pretty house was made ! 
One little minute, only one, 
And she 11 fly back, and find it — gone ! 

I took the wren's nest : 

Bird, forgive me ! 

Thou and thy mate, sans let, sans fear, 
Ye have before you all the year, 
And every wood holds nooks for you, 
In which to sing and build and woo ; 
One piteous cry of birdish pain — 
And ye '11 begin your life again, 
Forgetting quite the lost, lost home 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 175 

In many a busy home to come. 
But I ? your wee house keep I must, 
Until it crumble into dust. 

I took the wren's nest : 

God forgive me ! 

Dinah Matcia (Mulock) Ckaik. 



ON ANOTHER'S SORROW. 
Can I see another's woe, 
And not be in sorrow too ? 
Can I see another's grief, 
And not seek for kind relief ? 

Can I see a falling tear, 
And not feel my sorrow's share ? 
Can a father see his child 
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled ? 

Can a mother sit and hear 
An infant groan, an infant fear ? 
No, no ! never can it be ! 
Never, never can it be ! 

And can He who smiles on all 
Hear the wren with sorrows small, 
Hear the small bird's grief and care? 
Hear the woes that infants bear — 

And not sit beside the nest, 
Pouring pity in their breast, 
And not sit in the cradle near, 
Weeping tear on infant's tear ? 



176 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

And not sit both night and day, 

Wiping all our tears away ? 

Oh no ! never can it be ! 

Never, never can it be ! William Blake. 



THE SHEPHERD'S HOME. 
My banks they are furnished with bees, 

Whose murmur invites one to sleep ; 
My grottoes are shaded with trees, 

And my hills are white over with sheep. 
I seldom have met with a loss, 

Such health do my fountains bestow ; 
My fountains all bordered with moss, 

Where the harebells and violets blow. 

Not a pine in the grove is there seen, 

But with tendrils of woodbine is bound : 
Not a beech's more beautiful green, 

But a sweet-brier entwines it around. 
Not my fields in the prime of the year, 

More charms than my cattle unfold ; 
Not a brook that is limpid and clear, 

But it glitters with fishes of gold. 

I found out a gift for my fair, 

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed ; 
But let me such plunder forbear, 

She will say 't was a barbarous deed ; 
For he ne'er could be true, she averred, 

Who would rob a poor bird of its young ; 
And I loved her the more when I heard 

Such tenderness fall from her tongue. 

Shenstone (d. 1673), 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 177 

THE "WOOD-PIGEON'S HOME. 
Come with me, if but in fancy, 

To the wood, the green soft shade : 
'T is a haven, pure and lovely, 

For the good of mankind made. 

Listen ! you can hear the cooing, 

Soft and soothing, gentle sounds, 
Of the pigeons, as they nestle 

In the branches all around. 

In the city and the open, 

Man has built or tilled the land ; 

But the home of the wood- pigeon 

Bears the touch of God's own hand. 

Anon. 



THE SHAG. 
" What is that great bird, sister, tell me, 

Perched high on the top of the crag ? " 
" 'T is the cormorant, dear little brother ; 

The fishermen call it the shag." 

" But what does it there, sister, tell me, 
Sitting lonely against the black sky ? " 

" It has settled to rest, little brother ; 
It hears the wild gale wailing high." 

" But I am afraid of it, sister, 
For over the sea and the land 

It gazes, so black and so silent ! " 

" Little brother, hold fast to my hand." 
12 



178 VOICES FOE THE SPEECHLESS. 

" Oh. what was that, sister ? The thunder ? 

Did the shag bring the storm and the cloud, 
The wind and the rain and the lightning ? " 

" Little brother, the thunder roars loud. 

" Run fast, for the rain sweeps the ocean ; 

Look ! over the lighthouse it streams ; 
And the lightning leaps red, and above us 

The gulls nil the air with their screams." 

O'er the beach, o'er the rocks, running swiftly, 
The little white cottage they gain ; 

And safely they watch from the window 
The dance and the rush of the rain. 

But the shag kept his place on the headland, 
And, when the brief storm had gone by, 

He shook his loose plumes, and they saw him 
Rise splendid and strong in the sky. 

Clinging fast to the gown of his sister, 
The little boy laughed as he flew : 

" He is gone w^ith the wind and lightning ! 
And — I am not frightened, — are you ? " 

Celia Thaxter. 



THE LOST BIRD. 

My bird has flown away, 
Far out of sight has flown, I know not where. 

Look in your lawn, I pray, 

Ye maidens kind and fair, 
And see if my beloved bird be there. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 179 

His eyes are full of light ; 
The eagle of the rock has such an eye ; 

And plumes, exceeding bright, 

Round Ins smooth temples lie, 
And sweet his voice and tender as a sigh. 

Look where the grass is gay 
With summer blossoms, haply there he cowers ; 

And search, from spray to spray, 

The leafy laurel bowers, 
For well he loves the laurels and the flowers. 

Find him, but do not dwell, 
With eyes too fond, on the fair form you see, 

Nor love his song too well ; 

Send him, at once, to me, 
Or leave him to the air and liberty. 

For only from my hand 
He takes the seed into his golden beak, 

And all unwiped shall stand 

The tears that wet my cheek, 
Till I have found the wanderer I seek. 

My sight is darkened o'er, 
Whene'er I miss his eyes, which are my day, 

And when I hear no more 

The music of his lay, 
My heart in utter sadness faints away. 

From the Spanish of Carolina Coronado de Perry. 
Translated by W. C. Bryant. 



180 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

THE BIRDS MUST KNOW. 
The birds must know. Who wisely sings 

Will sing as they ; 
The common air has generous wings, 

Songs make their way. 
No messenger to run before, 

Devising plan; 
No mention of the place or hour 

To any man ; 
No waiting till some sound betrays 

A listening ear ; 
No different voice, no new delays, 

If steps draw near. 
" What bird is that ? Its song is good." 

And eager eyes 
Go peering through the dusky wood, 

In glad surprise. 
Then late at night, when by his fire 

The traveller sits, 
Watching the flame grow brighter, higher, 

The sweet song flits 
By snatches through his weary brain 

To help him rest ; 
When next he goes that road again 

An empty nest 
On leafless bough will make him sigh, 

" Ah me ! last spring 
Just here I heard, in passing by, 

That rare bird sing ! " 

But while he sighs, remembering 
How sweet the song, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 181 

The little bird on tireless wing, 

Is borne along 
In other air ; and other men 

With weary feet, 
On other roads, the simple strain 

Are finding sweet. 
The birds must know. Who wisely sings 

Will sing as they ; 
The common air has generous wings, 

Songs make their way. H. H. 



THE BIRD KING. 
Dost thou the monarch eagle seek ? 

Thou 'It find him in the tempest's maw, 
Where thunders with tornadoes speak, 

And forests fly as though of straw ; 
Or on some lightning-splintered peak, 

Sceptred with desolation's law, 
The shrubless mountain in his beak, 

The barren desert in his claw. 

Alger's Oriental Poetry. 



SHADOWS OF BIRDS. 
In darkened air, alone with pain, 
I lay. Like links of heavy chain 
The minutes sounded, measuring day, 
And slipping lifelessly away. 
Sudden across my silent room 
A shadow darker than its gloom . 
Swept swift ; a shadow slim and small, 
Which poised and darted on the wall, 



182 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

And vanished quickly as it came. 
A shadow, yet it lit like flame ; 
A shadow, yet I heard it sing. 
And heard the rustle of its wing, 
Till every pulse with joy was stirred ; 
It was the shadow of a hird ! 

Only the shadow ! Yet it made 

Full summer everywhere it strayed ; 

And every bird I ever knew 

Back and forth in the summer flew, 

And breezes wafted over me 

The scent of every flower and tree ; 

Till I forgot the pain and gloom 

And silence of my darkened room. 

Now, in the glorious open air 

I watch the birds fly here and there ; 

And wonder, as each swift wing cleaves 

The sky, if some poor soul that grieves 

In lonely, darkened, silent walls, 

Will catch the shadow as it falls ! H. H. 



THE BIRD AND THE SHIP. 
" The rivers rush into the sea, 

By castle and town they go ; 
The winds behind them merrily 

Their noisy trumpets blow. 

" The clouds are passing far and high, 
We little birds in them play ; 

And everything, that can sing and fly, 
Goes with us, and far away. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 183 

" I greet thee, bonny boat ! Whither or whence, 

With thy fluttering golden band ? " 
" I greet thee, little bird ! To the wide sea, 

I haste from the narrow land. 

" Full and swollen is every sail ; 

I see no longer a hill, 
I have trusted all to the sounding gale, 

And it will not let me stand still. 

" And wilt thou, little bird, go with us ? 

Thon mayest stand on the mainmast tall, 
For full to sinking is my house 

With merry companions all." 

" I need not and seek not company, 

Bonny boat, I can sing all alone ; 
For the mainmast tall too heavy am I, 

Bonny boat, I have wings of my own. 

" High over the sails, high over the mast, 

Who shall gainsay these joys ? 
When thy merry companions are still, at last, 

Thou shalt hear the sound of my voice. 

" Who neither may rest, nor listen may, 

God bless them every one ! 
I dart away, in the bright blue day, 

And the golden fields of the sun. 

" Thus do I sing my weary song, 
Wherever the four winds blow ; 



184 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

And this same song, my whole life long, 
Neither Poet nor Printer may know." 

H. W. Longfellow. 

A MYTH. 
Afloating, afloating 

Across the sleeping sea, 
All night I heard a singing bird 

Upon the topmast tree. 

" Oh, came you from the isles of Greece, 

Or from the banks of Seine ? 
Or off some tree in forests free 

That fringe the western main ? " 

" I came not off the old world, 

Nor yet from off the new ; 
But I am one of the birds of God 

Which sing the whole night through." 

" Oh, sing and wake the dawning ! 

Oh, whistle for the wind ! 
The night is long, the current strong, 

My boat it lags behind." 

" The current sweeps the old world, 

The current sweeps the new ; 
The wind will blow, the dawn will glow, 

Ere thou hast sailed them through." 

C. KlNGSLEY. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 185 

THE DOG. 

CUVIER ON THE DOG. 
" The domestic clog," says Cuvier, " is the most com- 
plete, the most singular, and the most useful conquest 
that man has gained in the animal world. The whole 
species has become our property ; each individual be- 
longs entirely to his master, acquires his disposition, 
knows and defends his property, and remains attached 
to him until death ; and all this, not through constraint 
or necessity, but purely by the influences of gratitude 
and real attachment. The swiftness, the strength, the 
sharp scent of the dog, have rendered him a powerful 
ally to man against the lower tribes ; and were, per- 
haps, necessary for the establishment of the dominion of 
mankind over the whole animal creation. The dog is 
the only animal which has followed man over the whole 
earth." 



A HINDOO LEGEND. 

In the Mahabharata, one of the two great Hindoo po- 
ems, and of unknown antiquity, there is a recognition of 
the obligation of man to a dependent creature not sur- 
passed in pathos in all literature. 

We copy only such portions of the legend as bear 
upon this point. 

The hero, Yudhistthira, leaves his home to go to 
Mount Meru, among the Himalayas, to find Indra's 
heaven and the rest he so much desired ; and with him, 

" The five brothers set forth, and Draupadi, and the seventh was 
a dog that followed them." 

On the way the Princess Draupadi perished, and, after 



186 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

her, one brother after another, until all had died, and the 
hero reached his journey's end accompanied only by his 
dog. 

Lo ! suddenly, with a sound which rang through heaven 

and earth, 
Indra came riding on his chariot, and he cried to the 

king, " Ascend ! " 
Then, indeed, did the lord of justice look back to his 

fallen brothers, 
And thus unto Indra he spoke, with a sorrowful heart : 
"Let my brothers, who yonder lie fallen, go with 

me; 
Not even unto thy heaven would I enter, if they were 

not there. 
And yon fair-faced daughter of a king, Draupadi the 

all-deserving, 
Let her too enter with us ! O Indra, approve my prayer ! " 

INDRA. 

In heaven thou shalt find thy brothers, — they are al- 
ready there before thee ; 

There are they all, with Draupadi ; weep not, then, O 
son of Bharata ! 

Thither have they entered, prince, having thrown away 
their mortal weeds ; 

But thou alone shalt enter still wearing thy body of flesh. 

YUDHISTTHIRA. 

Indra, and what of this dog ? It hath faithfully fol- 
lowed me through ; 

Let it go with me into heaven, for my soul is full of 
compassion. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 187 

INDRA. 

Immortality and fellowship with me, and the height of 

joy and felicity, 
All these hast thou reached to-day ; leave, then, the dog 

behind thee. 

YUDHISTTHIRA. 

The good may oft act an evil part, but never a part 

like this ; 
Away, then, with that felicity whose price is to abandon 

the faithful ! 

INDRA. 

My heaven hath no place for dogs ; they steal away our 

offerings on earth : 
Leave, then, thy dog behind thee, nor think in thy heart 

that it is cruel. 

YTJDHISTTHIRA. 

To abandon the faithful and devoted is an endless crime, 

like the murder of a Brahmin ; 
Never, therefore, come weal or woe, will I abandon yon 

faithful dog. 
Yon poor creature, in fear and distress, hath trusted in 

my power to save it : 
Not, therefore, for e'en life itself will I break my 
word. 

ENDRA. 

If a dog but beholds a sacrifice, men esteem it unholy 

and void ; 
Forsake, then, the dog, O hero, and heaven is thine own 

as a reward. 



188 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Already thou hast borne to forsake thy fondly loved 

brothers, and Dranpadi ; 
Why, then, forsakest thou not the dog ? Wherefore now 

fails thy heart ? 

YTJDHISTTHIRA. 

Mortals, when they are dead, are dead to love or hate, 
— so runs the world's belief ; 

I could not bring them back to life, but while they lived 
I never left them. 

To oppress the suppliant, to kill a wife, to rob a Brah- 
min, and to betray one's friend, 

These are the four great crimes ; and to forsake a de- 
pendent I count equal to them. 

Alger's Oriental Poetry. 



ULYSSES AND ARGUS. 
This story, from the Odyssey, is also of an unknown antiquity. 
Ulysses, after many years of absence, returns to his home to find 
himself unrecognized by his family. With Eumseus Ulysses 
walked about the familiar grounds : 

Thus near the gates conferring as they drew, 
Argus, the dog, his ancient master knew ; 
He, not unconscious of the voice and tread, 
Lifts to the sound his ear, and rears his head ; 
Bred by Ulysses, nourished at his board, 
But, ah ! not fated long to please his lord ! 
To him, his swiftness and his strength were vain ; 
The voice of glory called him o'er the main. 
Till then, in every sylvan chase renowned, 
With Argus, Argus, rung the woods around : 
With him the youth pursued the goat or fawn, 
Or traced the mazy leveret o'er the lawn ; 



VOICES FOR TEE SPEECHLESS. 189 

Now left to man's ingratitude he lay, 
Unhoused, neglected in the public way. 

He knew his lord : he knew, and strove to meet ; 
In vain he strove to crawl, and kiss his feet ; 
Yet (all he could) his tail, his ears, his eyes. 
Salute his master, and confess his joys. 
Soft pity touched the mighty master's soul ; 
Adown his cheek a tear unbidden stole, 
Stole unperceived : he turned his head and dried 
The drop humane : then thus impassioned cried : 

" What noble beast in this abandoned state 
Lies here all helpless at Ulysses' gate ? 
His bulk and beauty speak no vulgar praise : 
If, as he seems, he was in better days, 
Some care his age deserves ; or was he prized 
For worthless beauty ? therefore now despised : 
Such dogs and men there are, mere things of state, 
And always cherished by their friends the great." 

Not Argus so (Eumseus thus rejoined), 
But served a master of a nobler kind, 
Who never, never, shall behold him more ! 
Long, long since perished on a distant shore ! 
Oh, had you seen him, vigorous, bold, and young, 
Swift as a stag, and as a lion strong : 
Him no fell savage on the plain withstood, 
None 'scaped him bosomed in the gloomy wood; 
His eye how piercing, and his scent how true, 
To wind the vaj)or in the tainted dew ! - 
Such, when Ulysses left his natal coast : 
Now years unnerve him, and his lord is lost. 

Odyssey, Pope's translation. 



190 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

/ TOM. 
Yes, Tom 's the best fellow that ever you knew. 

Just listen to this : — 
When the old mill took fire, and the flooring fell through, 
And I with it, helpless there, full in my view 
What do you think my eyes saw through the fire 
That crept along, crept along, nigher and nigher, 
But Hobin, my baby-boy, laughing to see 
The shining ? He must have come there after me, 
Toddled alone from the cottage without 

Any one's missing him. Then, what a shout — 

Oh ! how I shouted, " For Heaven's sake, men, 

Save little Robin ! " Again and again 

They tried, but the fire held them back like a wall. 

I could hear them go at it, and at it, and call, 

" Never mind, baby, sit still like a man ! 

We 're coining to get you as fast as we can." 

They could not see him, but I could. He sat 

Still on a beam, his little straw hat 

Carefully placed by his side ; and his eyes 

Stared at the flame with a baby's surprise, 

Calm and unconscious, as nearer it crept. 

The roar of the fire up above must have kept 

The sound of his mother's voice shrieking his name 

From reaching the child. But I heard it. It came 

Again and again. O God, what a cry ! 

The axes went faster ; I saw the sparks fly 

Where the men worked like tigers, nor minded the heat 

That scorched them, — when, suddenly, there at their 

feet, 
The great beams leaned in — they saw him — then, 

crash, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 191 

Down came the wall ! The men made a dash, — 
Jumped to get out of the way, - — and I thought, 
" All 's up with poor little Robin ! " and brought 
Slowly the arm that was least hurt to hide 
The sight of the child there, — when swift, at my side, 
Some one rushed by, and went right through the flame, 
Straight as a dart — caught the child — and then came 
Back with him, choking and crying, but — saved ! 
Saved safe and sound ! 

Oh, how the men raved, 
Shouted, and cried, and hurrahed ! Then they all 
Rushed at the work again, lest the back wall 
Where I was lying, away from the fire, 
Should fall in and bury me. 

Oh ! you 'd admire 
To see Robin now : he 's as bright as a dime, 
Deep in some mischief, too, most of the time. 
Tom, it was, saved him. Now, is n't it true 
Tom 's the best fellow that ever you knew ? 
There 's Robin now ! See, he 's strong as a log ! 
And there comes Tom, too — 

Yes, Tom was our dog. 
Constance Fenimore Woolson. 



^WILLIAM OF ORANGE SAVED BY HIS DOG. 

On the night of the 11th and 12th of September, 
1572, a chosen band of six hundred Spaniards made an 
attack within the lines of the Dutch army. The senti- 
nels were cut down, the whole army surprised and for 
a moment powerless. The Prince of Orange and his 
guards were in profound sleep ; " but a small spaniel 
dog," says Mr. Motley, " who always passed the night 



192 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

upon his bed, was a most faithful sentinel. The crea- 
ture sprang forward, barking furiously at the sound of 
hostile footsteps, and scratching his master's face with 
his paws. There was but just time for the Prince to 
mount a horse which was ready saddled, and to effect his 
escape through the darkness, before his enemies sprang 
into the tent. His servants were cut down, his master 
of the horse and two of his secretaries, who gained their 
saddles a moment later, all lost their lives, and but for 
the little dog's watchfulness, William of Orange, upon 
whose shoulders the whole weight of his country's for- 
tune depended, would have been led within a week to an 
ignominious death. To his death, the Prince ever after- 
wards kept a spaniel of the same race in his bed-chamber. 
Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic. 



The mausoleum of William the Silent is at Delft. It 
is a sort of small temple in black and white marble, 
loaded with ornaments and sustained by columns be- 
tween which are four statues representing Liberty, Prov- 
idence, Justice, and Religion. Upon the sarcophagus 
lies the figure of the Prince in white marble, and at his 
feet the effigy of the little dog that saved his life at the 
siege of Malines. De Amicis' Holland. 



THE BLOODHOUND. 
Come, Herod, my hound, from the stranger's floor ! 
Old friend — we must wander the world once more ! 
For no one now liveth to welcome us back ; 
So, come ! — let us speed on our fated track. 
What matter the region, — what matter the weather, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 193 

So you and I travel, till death, together ? 

And in death ? — why, e'en there I may still be found 

By the side of my beautiful black bloodhound. 

"We 've traversed the desert, we 've traversed the sea, 

And we 've trod on the heights where the eagles be ; 

Seen Tartar, and Arab, and swart Hindoo ; 

(How thou pull'dst down the deer in those skies of blue ;) 

No joy did divide us ; no peril could part 

The man from his friend of the noble heart ; 

Aye, his friend ; for where, where shall there ever be 

found 
A friend like his resolute, fond bloodhound ? 

What, Herod, old hound ! dost remember the day 

When I fronted the wolves like a stag at bay ? 

When downward they galloped to where we stood, 

Whilst I staggered with fear in the dark pine wood ? 

Dost remember their howlings ? their horrible speed ? 

God, God ! how I prayed for a friend in need ! 

And — he came ! Ah, 't was then, my dear Herod, I « 

found 
That the best of all friends was my bold bloodhound. 

Men tell us, dear friend, that the noble hound 
Must forever be lost in the worthless ground : 
Yet " Courage," " Fidelity," " Love " (they say), 
Bear Man, as on wings, to his skies away. 
Well, Herod — go tell them whatever may be, 
I '11 hope I may ever be found by thee. 
If in sleep, — in sleep ; if with skies around, 
Mayst thou follow e'en thither, my dear bloodhound ! 

Barry Cornwall. 

13 



194 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

HELVELLYN. 

This fine poem was suggested by the affection of a dog, which 
kept watch over the dead body of its master until found by 
friends three months afterwards. The young man had lost his 
way on Helvellyn. Time, 1805. 

I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn, 

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and 
wide ; 
All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling, 

And starting around me the echoes replied. 
On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bend- 
ing, 
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending, 
One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending, 
When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had 
died. 

Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain 
heather, 

Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay, 
Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather 

Till the mountain- winds wasted the tenantless clay. 
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, 
For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended, 
The much-loved remains of her master defended, 

And chased the hill-fox and the raven away. 

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber ? 

When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou 
start ? 
How many long days and long weeks didst thou number, 

Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart ? 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 195 

And, oh ! was it meet, that — no requiem read o'er 

him — 
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him, 
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him — 
Unhonored the Pilgrim from life should depart ? 

When a Prince to the fate of the Peasant has yielded, 
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall ; 

With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded, 
And pages stand mute by the canojiied pall : 

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are 
gleaming ; 

In the proudly-arched chapel the banners are beaming, 

Far adown the long aisle the sacred music is streaming, 
Lamenting a Chief of the People should fall. 

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature, 

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, 
When, 'wildered he drops from some cliff huge in stature, 

And draws his last sob by the side of his dam. 
And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying, 
Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying, 
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying, 
In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam. 

Walter Scott. 



LLEWELLYN AND HIS DOG. 
The spearmen heard the bugle sound, 

And cheerily smiled the morn, 
And many a brach, and many a hound, 

Attend Llewellyn's horn. 
And still he blew a louder blast, 

And gave a louder cheer ; 



196 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

" Come, Gelert ! why art thou the last, 
Llewellyn's horn to hear? 

" Oh, where does faithful Gelert roam ? 

The flower of all his race ! 
So true, so brave — a lamb at home, 

A lion in the chase ! " 
That day Llewellyn little loved 

The chase of hart or hare ; 
And scant and small the booty proved, 

For Gelert was not there. 

Unpleased, Llewellyn homeward hied, 

When near the portal seat, 
His truant Gelert he espied, 

Bounding his lord to greet. 
But when he gained the castle door, 

Aghast the chieftain stood : 
The hound was smeared with drops of gore ; 

His lips and fangs ran blood. 

Llewellyn gazed with wild surprise, 

Unused such looks to meet ; 
His favorite checked his joyful guise, 

And crouched and licked his feet. 
Onward in haste Llewellyn passed, 

(And on went Gelert too ;) 
And still, where'er his eyes were cast, 

Fresh blood-drops shocked his view. 

O'erturned his infant's bed he found, 
The blood-stained cover rent 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 197 

And all around the walls and ground 

With recent blood besprent. 
He called his child — no voice replied ; 

He searched — with terror wild ; 
Blood ! blood ! he found on every side, 

But nowhere found the child ! 

" Monster, by thee my child 's devoured ! " 

The frantic father cried, 
And to the hilt his vengeful sword 

He plunged in Gelert's side. 
His suppliant, as to earth he fell, 

No pity could impart ; 
But still his Gelert's dying yell, 

Passed heavy o'er his heart. 

Aroused by Gelert's dying yell, 

Some slumberer wakened nigh : 
What words the parent's joy can tell 

To hear his infant cry ! 
Concealed beneath a mangled heap 

His hurried search had missed : 
All glowing from his rosy sleep, 
. His cherub boy he kissed. 

Nor scratch had he, nor harm, nor dread ; 

But the same couch beneath 
Lay a great wolf, all torn and dead — 

Tremendous still in death. 
Ah, what was then Llewellyn's pain ! 

For now the truth was clear ; 
The gallant hound the wolf had slain 

To save Llewellyn's heir. 



198 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Vain, vain was all Llewellyn's woe — 

" Best of thy kind, adieu ! 
The frantic deed which laid thee low 

This heart shall ever rue." 
And now a gallant tomb they raise, 

With costly sculpture decked ; 
And marbles, storied with his praise, 

Poor Gelert's bones protect. 

Here never could the spearman pass, 

Or forester unmoved ; 
Here oft the tear-besprinkled grass 

Llewellyn's sorrow proved. 
And here he hung his horn and spear ; 

And oft, as evening fell, 
In fancy's piercing sounds would hear 

Poor Gelert's dying yell. Spenser. 



LOOKING FOR PEARLS. 
AN" ORIENTAL LEGEND. 

The Master came one evening to the gate 
Of a far city ; it was growing late, 
And sending his disciples to buy food, 
He wandered forth intent on doing good, 
As was his wont. And in the market-place 
He saw a crowd, close gathered in one space, 
Gazing with eager eyes upon the ground. 
Jesus drew nearer, and thereon he found 
A noisome creature, a bedraggled wreck, — 
A dead dog with a halter round his neck. 
And those who stood by mocked the object there, 
And one said scoffing, " It pollutes the air ! " 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 199 

Another, jeering, asked, " How long to-night 
Shall such a miscreant cur offend our sight ? " 
" Look at his torn hide," sneered a Jewish wit, — 
" You could not cut even a shoe from it," 
And turned away. " Behold his ears that bleed," 
A fourth chimed in ; "an unclean wretch indeed ! " 
" He hath been hanged for thieving," they all cried, 
And spurned the loathsome beast from side to side. 
Then Jesus, standing by them in the street, 
Looked on the poor spent creature at his feet, 
And, bending o'er him, spake unto the men, 
" Pearls are not whiter than his teeth.'" And then 
The people at each other gazed, asking, 
" Who is this stranger pitying the vile thing ? " 
Then one exclaimed, with awe-abated breath, 
" This surely is the Man of Nazareth ; 
This must be Jesus, for none else but he 
Something to praise in a dead dog could see ! " 
And, being ashamed, each scoffer bowed his head, 
And from the sight of Jesus turned and fled. 

Alger's Eastern Poetry. 



, / ROVER. 

" Kind traveller, do not pass me by, 

And thus a poor old dog forsake ; 
But stop a moment on your way, 

And hear my woe for pity's sake ! 

My name is Rover ; yonder house 
Was once my home for many a year ; 

My masster loved me ; every hand 
Caressed young Rover, far and near. 



200 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

The children rode upon my back, 
And I could hear my praises sung ; 

With joy I licked their pretty feet, 
As round my shaggy sides they clung. 

" I watched them while they played or slept ; 

I gave them all I had to give : 
My strength was theirs from morn till night ; 

For them I only cared to live. 

" Now I am old, and blind, and lame, 
They 've turned me out to die alone, 

Without a shelter for my head, 
Without a scrap of bread or bone. 

" This morning I can hardly crawl, 
While shivering in the snow and hail ; 

My teeth are dropping, one by one ; 
I scarce have strength to wag my tail. 

l{ I 'm palsied grown with mortal pains, 
My withered limbs are useless now ; 

My voice is almost gone you see, 
And I can hardly make my bow. 

<( Perhaps you 11 lead me to a shed 

Where I may find some friendly straw 

On which to lay my aching limbs, 
And rest my helpless, broken paw. 

" Stranger, excuse this story long, 
And pardon, pray, my last appeal ; 

You 've owned a dog yourself, perhaps, 

And learned that dogs, like men, can feel." 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 201 

Yes, poor old Rover, come with me ; 

Food, with warm shelter, I '11 supply ; 
And Heaven forgive the cruel souls 

Who drove you forth to starve and die ! 

J. T. Fields. 



BLANCO." 
My dear dumb friend, low lying there, 

A willing vassal at my feet, 
Glad partner of my home and fare, 

My shadow in the street. 

I look into your great brown eyes, 
Where love and loyal homage shine, 

And wonder where the difference lies 
Between your soul and mine ! 

For all of good that I have found 
Within myself or humankind, 

Hath royalty informed and crowned 
Your gentle heart and mind. 

I scan the whole broad earth around 
For that one heart which, leal and true, 

Bears friendship without end or bound, 
And find the prize in you. 

I trust you as I trust the stars ; 

Nor cruel loss, nor scoff of pride, 
Nor beggary, nor dungeon-bars, 

Can move you from my side ! 

As patient under injury 

As any Christian saint of old, 



202 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

As gentle as a lamb with me, 
But with your brothers bold ; 

More playful than a frolic boy, 

More watchful than a sentinel, 
By day and night your constant joy, 

To guard and please me well : 

I clasp your head upon my breast — 

And while you whine and lick my hand — 

And thus our friendship is confessed 
And thus we understand ! 

Ah, Blanco ! did I worship God 

As truly as you worship me, 
Or follow where my master trod 

With your humility ; 

Did I sit fondly at His feet, 

As you, dear Blanco, sit at mine, 

And watch him with a love as sweet, 
My life would grow divine ! 

J. G. Holland. 



THE BEGGAR AND HIS DOG. 
" Pay down three dollars for my hound ! 
May lightning strike me to the ground ! 
What mean the Messieurs of police ? 
And when and where shall this mockery cease ? 

" I am a poor, old, sickly man, 
And earn a penny I no wise can ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 203 

I have no money, I have no bread, 
And live upon hunger and want, instead. 

" Who pitied me, when I grew sick and poor, 
And neighbors turned me from their door ? 
And who, when I was left alone 
In God's wide world, made my fortunes his own ? 

" Who loved me, when I was weak and old ? 
And warmed me, when I was numb with cold ? 
And who, when I in poverty pined, 
Has shared my hunger and never whined ? 

" Here is the noose, and here the stone, 
And there the water — it must be done ! 
Come hither, poor Pomp, and look not on me, 
One kick — it is over — and thou art free ! " 

As over Iris head he lifted the band, 

The fawning dog licked his master's hand ; 

Back in an instant the noose he drew, 

And round his own neck in a twinkling threw. 

The dog sprang after him into the deep, 
His howlings startled the sailors from sleep ; 
Moaning and twitching he showed them the spot : 
They found the beggar, but life was not ! 

They laid him silently in the ground, 
His only mourner the whimpering hound 
Who stretched himself out on the grave and cried 
Like an orphan child — and so he died. 

Chamisso, tr. by C. T. Brooks. 



204 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

DON. 

This is Don, the dog of dogs, sir, 
Just as lions outrank frogs, sir, 
Just as the eagles are superior 
To buzzards and that tribe inferior. 

He 's a shepherd lad — a beauty — 

And to praise him seems a duty, 

But it puts my pen to shame, sir, 

When his virtues I would name, sir. 

" Don ! come here and bend your head now, 

Let us see your best well-bred bow ! " 

Was there ever such a creature ! 

Common sense in every feature ! 

" Don ! rise up and look around you ! " 

Blessings on the day we found you. 

Sell him ! well, upon my word, sir, 
That 's a notion too absurd, sir. 
Would I sell our little Ally, 
Barter Tom, dispose of Sally ? 
Think you I 'd negotiate 
For my wife, at any rate ? 

Sell our Don ! you 're surely joking, 

And 't is fun at us you're poking ! 

Twenty voyages we 've tried, sir, 

Sleeping, waking, side by side, sir, 

And Don and I will not divide, sir ; 

He 's my friend, that 's why I love him, — 

And no mortal dog 's above him ! 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 205 

He prefers a life aquatic, 
But never dog was less dogmatic. 
Years ago when I was master 
Of a tight brig called the Castor, 
Don and I were bound for Cadiz, 
With the loveliest of ladies 
And her boy — a stalwart, hearty, 
Crowing one-year infant party, 
Full of childhood's myriad graces, 
Bubbling sunshine in our faces 
As we bowled along so steady, 
Half-way home, or more, already. 

How the sailors loved our darling ! 
No more swearing, no more snarling ; 
On their backs, when not on duty, 
Round they bore the blue-eyed beauty, — 
Singing, shouting, leaping, prancing, — 
All the crew took turns in dancing ; 
Every tar playing Punchinello 
With the pretty, laughing fellow ; 
Even the second mate gave sly winks 
At the noisy mid-day high jinks. 
Never was a crew so happy 
With a curly-headed chappy, 
Never were such sports gigantic, 
Never dog with joy more antic. 

While thus jolly, all together, 
There blew up a change of weather, 
Nothing stormy, but quite breezy, 
And the wind grew damp and wheezy, 
Like a gale in too low spirits 



206 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

To put forth one half its merits, 
But, perchance, a dry-land ranger 
Might suspect some kind of danger. 

Soon our stanch and gallant vessel 
With the waves began to wrestle, 
And to jump about a trifle, 
Sometimes kicking like a rifle 
When 't is slightly overloaded, 
But by no means nigh exploded. 

'T was the coming on of twilight, 

As we stood abaft the skylight, 

Scampering round to please the baby, 

(Old Bill Benson held him, maybe,) 

When the youngster stretched his fingers 

Towards the spot where sunset lingers, 

And with strong and sudden motion 

Leaped into the weltering ocean ! 

" What did Don do ? " Can't you guess, sir ? 

He sprang also — by express, sir ; 

Seized the infant's little dress, sir, 

Held the baby's head up boldly 

From the waves that rushed so coldly ; 

And in just about a minute 

Our boat had them safe within it. 

Sell him ! Would you sell your brother ? 
Don and I love one another. J. T Fields. 



GEIST'S GRAVE. 
Four years ! — and didst thou stay above 
The ground, which hides thee now, but four? 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 207 

And all that life, and all that love, 
Were crowded, Geist ! into no more ? 

Only four years those winning ways, 
Which make me for thy presence yearn, 
Called us to pet thee or to praise, 
Dear little friend ! at every turn ? 

That loving heart, that patient soul, 
Had they indeed no longer span, 
To run their course, and reach their goal, 
And read their homily to man ? 

That liquid, melancholy eye, 
From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs 
Seemed surging the Virgilian cry. 1 
The sense of tears in mortal things — 

That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled 

By spirits gloriously gay, 

And temper of heroic mould — 

What, was four years their whole short day ? 

Yes, only four ! — and not the course 

Of all the centuries to come, 

And not the infinite resource 

Of nature, with her countless sum 

Of figures, with her fulness vast 
Of new creation evermore, 
Can ever quite repeat the past, 
Or just thy little self restore. 

1 Sunt lacrimse rerum. 



208 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Stern law of every mortal lot ! 

Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, 

And builds himself I know not what 

Of second life I know not where. 

But thou, when struck thine hour to go, 
On us, who stood despondent by, 
A meek last glance of love didst throw, 
And humbly lay thee down to die. 

Yet would we keep thee in our heart — 
Would fix our favorite on the scene, 
Nor let thee utterly depart 
And be as if thou ne'er hadst been. 

And so there rise these lines of verse 
On lips that rarely form them now ; 
While to each other we rehearse : 
Such ways, such arts, such looks hast thou ! 

We stroke thy broad, brown paws again, 
We bid thee to thy vacant chair, 
We greet thee by the window-pane, 
We hear thy scuffle on the stair ; 

We see the flaps of thy large ears 
Quick raised to ask which way we go : 
Crossing the frozen lake appears 
Thy small black figure on the snow ! 

Nor to us only art thou dear 

Who mourn thee in thine English home ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 209 

Thou hast thine absent master's tear, 
Dropt by the far Australian foam. 

Thy memory lasts both here and there, 
And thou shalt live as long as we. 
And after that — thou dost not care ? 
In us was all the world to thee. 

Yet fondly zealous for thy fame, 
Even to a date beyond thine own 
We strive to carry down thy name, 
By mounded turf, and graven stone. 

We lay thee, close within our reach, 
Here, where the grass is smooth and warm, 
Between the holly and the beech, 
Where oft we watched thy couchant form, 

Asleep, yet lending half an ear 
To travellers on the Portsmouth road — 
There choose we thee, guardian dear, 
Marked with a stone, thy last abode ! 

Then some, who through the garden pass. 
When we too, like thyself, are clay, 
Shall see thy grave upon the grass, 
And stop before the stone, and say : — 

People who lived here long ago 

Did by this stone, it seems, intend 

To name for future times to know 

The dachs-houndy Geist } their little friend. 

Matthew Arnold. 
14 



210 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

ON THE DEATH OP A FAVORITE OLD SPANIEL, 
Poor old friend, how earnestly 
Would I have pleaded for thee ! thou hadst been 
Still the companion of my boyish sports ; 
And as I roamed o'er Avon's woody cliffs, 
From many a day-dream has thy short, quick bark 
Recalled my wandering soul. I have beguiled 
Often the melancholy hours at school, 
Soured by some little tyrant, with the thought 
Of distant home, and I remembered then 
Thy faithful fondness ; for not mean the joy, 
Returning at the happy holidays, 
I felt from thy dumb welcome. Pensively 
Sometimes have I remarked thy slow decay, 
Feeling myself changed too, and musing much 
On many a sad vicissitude of life. 
Ah, poor companion ! when thou followedst last 
Thy master's parting footsteps to the gate 
Which closed forever on him, thou didst lose 
Thy truest friend, and none was left to plead 
For the old age of brute fidelity. 
But fare thee well ! Mine is no narrow creed ; 
And He who gave thee being did not frame 
The mystery of life to be the sport 
Of merciless man. There is another world 
For all that live and move — a better one ! 
Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine 
Infinite Goodness to the little bounds 
Of their own charity, may envy thee. 

Robert Southey. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 211 

EPITAPH IN GREY FRIARS' CHURCHYARD. 
The monument erected at Edinburgh to the memory 
of "Grey Friars' Bobby" by the Baroness Burdett- 
Coutts has a Greek inscription by Professor Blackie. 
The translation is as follows : 

This monument 

was erected by a noble lady, 

The Baroness Burdett-Coutts, 

to the memory of 

GREY FRIARS' BOBBY, 

a faithful and affectionate 

Little Dog, 

who followed the remains of his beloved master 

to the churchyard, 

in the year 1858, 

and became a constant visitor to the grave, 

refusing to be separated from the spot 

until he died 

in the year 1872. 



FROM AN INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A 
NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. 

When some proud son of man returns to earth, 
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth, 
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe, 
And storied urns record who rests below ; 
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen, 
Not what he was, but what he should have been : 
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend, 
The first to welcome, foremost to defend, 
Whose honest heart is still his master's own, 
Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, 



212 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth, 
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth. 



Ye ! who perchance behold this simple urn, 
Pass on, — it honors none you wish to mourn ; 
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise ; 
I never knew but one, — and here he lies. 

Lord Byron, 1808. 



THE DOG. 

Poor friend and sport of man, like him unwise, 
Away ! Thou standest to his heart too near, 
Too close for careless rest or healthy cheer ; 

Almost in thee the glad brute nature dies. 

Go scour the fields in wilful enterprise, 

Lead the free chase, leap, plunge into the mere, 
Herd with thy fellows, stay no longer here, 

Seeking thy law and gospel in men's eyes. 

He cannot go ; love holds him fast to thee ; 

More than the voices of his kind thy word 
Lives in his heart ; for him thy very rod 
Has flowers : he only in thy will is free. 

Cast him not out, the unclaimed savage herd 
Would turn and rend him, pining for his God. 

Emily Pfeiffer. 

JOHNNY'S PRIVATE ARGUMENT. 
A poor little tramp of a doggie, one day, 

Low-spirited, weary, and sad, 
From a crowd of rude urchins ran limping away, 

And followed a dear little lad. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 213 

Whose round, chubby face, with the merry eyes blue, 
Made doggie think, " Here is a good boy and true ! " 

So, wagging his tail and expressing his views 

With a sort of affectionate whine, 
Johnny knew he was saying, " Dear boy, if you choose, 

To be any dog's master, be mine." 
And Johnny's blue eyes opened wide with delight, 
And he fondled the doggie and hugged him so tight. 

But alas ! on a day that to Johnny was sad, 

A newspaper notice he read, 
"Lost a dog : limped a little, and also he had 

A spot on the top of his head. 
Whoever returns him to me may believe 
A fair compensation he '11 surely receive." 

Johnny did n't want money, not he ; 't was n't that 

That made him just sit down to think, 
And made a grave look on his rosy face fat, 

And made those blue eyes of his wink 
To keep back the tears that were ready to flow, 
As he thought to himself, " Must the dear doggie go ? " 

'T was an argument Johnny was holding just there 

With his own little conscience so true. 
" It is plain," whispered conscience, " that if you 'd be 
fair, 

There is only one thing you can do ; 
Restore to his owner the dog ; don't delay, 
But attend to your duty at once, and to-day ! " 

No wonder he sat all so silent and still, 
Forgetting to fondle his pet — 



214 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

The poor little boy thinking hard with a will ; 

While thought doggie, " What makes him forget, 
I wonder, to frolic and play with me now, 
And why does he wear such a sorrowful brow ? " 

Well, how did it end ? Johnny's battle was fought, 

And the victory given to him : 
The clearly-loved pet to his owner was brought, 

Tho' it made little Johnny's eyes dim. 
But a wag of his tail doggie gives to this day 
Whenever our Johnny is passing that way. 

Mary D. Brine. 



THE HARPER. 
On the green banks of Shannon, when Sheelah was nigh, 
No blithe Irish lad was so happy as I ; 
No harp like my own could so cheerily play, 
And wherever I went was my poor dog Tray. 

When at last I was forced from my Sheelah to part, 
She said (while the sorrow was big at her heart), 
Oh, remember your Sheelah when far, far away ! 
And be kind, my dear Pat, to our poor dog Tray. 

Poor dog ! he was faithful and kind, to be sure ; 
He constantly loved me although I was poor ; 
When the sour-looking folks turned me heartless away, 
I had always a friend in my poor dog Tray. 

When the road was so dark, and the night was so cold, 
And Pat and his dog were grown weary and old, 
How snugly we slept in my old coat of gray! 
And he licked me for kindness, — my poor dog Tray. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 215 

Though my wallet was scant, I remembered his case, 
Nor refused my last crust to his pitiful face ; 
But he died at my feet on a cold winter day, 
And I played a sad lament for my poor dog Tray. 

Where now shall I go, poor, forsaken, and blind ? 
Can I find one to guide me, so faithful and kind ? 
To my sweet native village, so far, far away, 
I can never return with my poor dog Tray. 

Thomas Campbell. 



" FLIGHT." 
Never again shall her leaping welcome 

Hail my coming at eventide ; 
Never again shall her glancing footfall 

Range the fallow from side to side. 
Under the raindrops, under the snowflakes, 

Down in a narrow and darksome bed, 
Safe from sorrow, or fear, or loving, 

Lieth my beautiful, still and dead. 

Mouth of silver, and skin of satin, 

Foot as fleet as an arrow's flight, 
Statue-still at the call of " steady," 

Eyes as clear as the stars of night. 
Laughing breadths of the yellow stubble 

Now shall rustle to alien tread, 
And rabbits run in the clew-dim clover 

Safe — for my beautiful lieth dead. 

" Only a dog ! " do you say, Sir Critic ? 
Only a dog, but as truth I prize, 



216 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

The truest love I have won in living 
Lay in the deeps of her limpid eyes. 

Frosts of winter nor heat of summer 

Could make her fail if my footsteps led ; 

And memory holds in its treasure-casket 
The name of my darling who lieth dead. 

S. M. A. C. in Evening Post. 



THE IRISH WOLF-HOUND. 
As fly the shadows o'er the grass. 

He flies with step as light and sure. 
He hunts the wolf through Tostan Pass, 

And starts the deer by Lisanoure. 
The music of the Sabbath bells, 

O Con ! has not a sweeter sound, 
Than when along the valley swells 

The cry of John McDonnell's hound. 

His stature tall, his body long, 

His back like night, his breast like snow, 
His fore leg pillar-like and strong, 

His hind leg bended like a bow ; 
Rough, curling hair, head long and thin, 

His ear a leaf so small and round ; 
Not Bran, the favorite dog of Fin, 

Could rival John McDonnell's hound. 

Denis Florence MacCarthy. 



SIX FEET. 
My little rough dog and I 
Live a life that is rather rare, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 217 

We have so many good walks to take, 

And so few bad things to bear ; 
So much that gladdens and recreates, 

So little of wear and tear. 

Sometimes it blows and rains, 

But still the six feet ply ; 
No care at all to the following four 

If the leading two knows why, 
'T is a pleasure to have six feet we think, 

My little rough dog and I. 

And we travel all one way ; 

'T is a thing we should never do, 
To reckon the two without the four, 

Or the four without the two ; 
It would not be right if any one tried, 

Because it would not be true. 

And who shall look up and say, 

That it ought not so to be, 
Though the earth that is heaven enough for him, 

Is less than that to me, 
For a little rough dog can wake a joy 

That enters eternity. Humane Journal. 



THERE 'S ROOM ENOUGH FOR ALL. 
Ah, Rover, by those lustrous eyes 

That follow me with longing gaze, 
Which sometimes seem so human-wise, 

I look for human speech and ways. 
By your quick instinct, matchless love. 



218 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Your eager welcome, mute caress, 
That all my heart's emotions move, 

And loneliest moods and hours bless, 
I do believe, my dog, that you 
Have some beyond, some future new. 

Why not ? In heaven's inheritance 

Space must be cheap where worldly light 
In boundless, limitless expanse 

Rolls grandly far from human sight. 
He who has given such patient care, 

Such constancy, such tender trust, 
Such ardent zeal, such instincts rare, 

And made you something more than dust, 
May yet release the speechless thrall 
At death — there 's room enough for all. 

Our Continent. 



HIS FAITHFUL DOG. 
Lo, the poor Indian ! whose untutored mind 
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind ; 
His soul proud science never taught to stray 
Far as the solar walk, or milky way ; 
Yet simple- nature to his hope has given, 
Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heaven ; 
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 
Some happier island in the watery waste, 
"Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 
To be, contents his natural desire, 
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire ; 
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company. Pope. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 219 

THE FAITHFUL HOUND. 

A traveller, by the faithful hound, 

Half-buried in the snow was found, 

Still grasj)ing in his hand of ice 

That banner with the strange device, 

Excelsior ! 

H. W. Longfellow. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

THE SPIDER'S LESSON. 

Robert, the Bruce, in his dungeon stood, 

Waiting the hour of doom ; 
Behind him the palace of Holyrood, 

Before him — a nameless tomb. 
And the foam on his lip was flecked with red, 
As away to the past his memory sped, 
Upcalling the day of his past renown, 
When he won and he wore the Scottish crown : 
Yet come there shadow or come there shine, 
The spider is spinning his thread so fine. 

" Time and again I have fronted the tide 

Of the tyrant's vast array, 
But only to see on the crimson tide 

My hopes swept far away ; — 
Now a landless chief and a crownless king, 
On the broad, broad earth not a living thing 
To keep me court, save this insect small, 
Striving to reach from wall to wall : " 

For come there shadow or come there shine, 
The spider is spinning his thread so fine. 



220 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

" Work ! work like a fool, to the certain loss, 

Like myself, of your time and pain ; 
The space is too wide to be bridged across, 

You but waste your strength in vain ! " 
And Bruce for the moment forgot his grief, 
His soul now filled with the sure belief 
That, howsoever the issue went, 
For evil or good was the omen sent : 

And come there shadow or come there shine, 
The spider is spinning his thread so fine. 

As a gambler watches the turning card 
On which his all is staked, — 

As a mother waits for the hopeful word 
For which her soul has ached, — 

It was thus Bruce watched, with every sense 

Centred alone in that look intense ; 

All rigid he stood, with scattered breath — 

Now white, now red, but as still as death : 

Yet come there shadow or come there shine, 
The spider is spinning his thread so fine. 

Six several times the creature tried, 
"When at the seventh, " See, see ! 
He has spanned it over ! " the captive cried ; 

" Lo ! a bridge of hope to me ; 
Thee, God, I thank, for this lesson here 
Has tutored my soul to Persevere ! " 
And it served him well, for erelong he wore 
In freedom the Scottish crown once more i 

And come there shadow or come there shine, 
The spider is spimiing his thread so fine. 

John Brougham. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 221 

THE SPIDER AND STORK. 
Who taught the natives of the field and flood 
To shun their poison and to choose their food ? 
Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand, 
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand ? 
Who made the spider parallels design 
Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line ? 
Who bid the stork Columbus-like explore 
Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before ? 
Who calls the council, states the certain day, 
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way ? 

Pope. 



THE HOMESTEAD AT EVENING. —EVANGELINE'S 
BEAUTIFUL HEIFER. 

Now recommenced the reign of rest and affection and 
stillness. 

Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twi- 
light descending 

Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds 
to the homestead. 

Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks 
on each other, 

And with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness 
of evening. 

Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer, 

Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that waved 
from her collar, 

Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affec- 
tion. 

Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks 
from the seaside, 



222 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Where was their favorite pasture. Behind them fol- 
lowed the watch-dog, 

Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of 
his instinct, 

Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and su- 
perbly 

Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the strag- 
glers ; 

Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept ; their 
protector, 

When from the forest at night, through the starry 
silence, the wolves howled. 

Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from the 
marshes, 

Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor, 

Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes 
and their fetlocks, 

While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponder- 
ous saddles, 

Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of 
crimson, 

Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with 
blossoms. 

Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their 
udders 

Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and in regular 
cadence 

Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets de- 
scended. 

Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in 
the farm-yard, 

Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into still- 
ness ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 223 

Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the 

barn-doors, 
Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent. 
H. W. Longfellow : Evangeline. 



THE CATTLE OF A HUNDRED FARMS* 
And now, beset with many ills, 

A toilsome life I follow ; 
Compelled to carry from the hills, 
Thes*e logs to the impatient mills, 

Below there in the hollow. 

Yet something ever cheers and charms 

The rudeness of my labors ; 
Daily I water with these arms 
The cattle of a hundred farms, 

And have the birds for neighbors. 

H. W. Longfellow : Mad River. 



CAT-QUESTIONS. 
Dozing, and dozing, and dozing ! 

Pleasant enough, 
Dreaming of sweet cream and mouse-meat, 

Delicate stuff I 

Waked by a somerset, whirling 

From cushion to floor ; 
Waked to a wild rush for safety 

From window to door. 

Waking to* hands that first smooth us, 
And then pull our tails ; 



224 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Punished with slaps when we show them 
The length of our nails ! 



These big mortal tyrants even grudge us 

A place on the mat. 
Do they think we enjoy for our music 

Staccatoes of " scat " ? 

To be treated, now, just as you treat us, — 

The question is pat, — 
To take just our chances in living, 

Would you be a cat ? Lucy Larcom. 



THE NEWSBOY'S OAT. 
Want any papers, Mister ? 

Wish you 'd buy 'em of me — 
Ten year old, an' a fam'ly, 

An' bizness dull, you see. 
Fact, Boss ! There 's Tom, an' Tibby, 

An' Dad, an' Mam, an Mam's cat, 
None on 'em earning money — 

What do you think of that ? 

Could n't Dad work ? Why yes, Boss, 

He 's working for gov'ment now, — 
They give him his board for nothin', — ■ 

All along of a drunken row. 
An' Mam ? Well, she 's in the poorhouse, 

Been there a year or so ; 
So I 'm taking care of the others, 

Doing as well as I know. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 225 

Ought n't to live so ? Why, Mister, 

What 's a feller to do ? 
Some nights, when I 'm tired an' hungry, 

Seems as if each on 'em knew — 
They '11 all three cuddle around me, 

Till I get cheery, and say : 
Well, p'raps I '11 have sisters an' brothers, 

An' money an' clothes, too, some day. 

But if I do git rich, Boss, 

(An' a lecturin' chap one night 
Said newsboys could be Presidents 

If only they acted right) ; 
So, if I was President, Mister, 

The very first thing I 'd do, 
I 'd buy poor Tom an' Tibby 

A dinner — an' Mam's cat, too ! 

None o' your scraps an' leavin's, 

But a good square meal for all three ; 
If you think I 'd skimp my friends, Boss, 

That shows you don't know me. 
So 'ere's your papers — come take one, 

Gimme a lift if you can — 
For now you 've heard my story, 

You see I 'm a fam'ly man ! 

E. T. Cokbett. 



THE CHILD AND HER PUSSY. 
I like little pussy, her coat is so warm, 
And if I don't hurt her, she '11 do me no harm ; 
So 1 11 not pull her tail, nor drive her away, 
But pussy and I very gently will play : 
15 



226 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

She shall sit by my side, and 1 11 give her some food ; 

And she '11 love me, because I am gentle and good. 

I '11 pat little pussy, and then she will purr, 

And thus show her thanks for my kindness to her. 

E. Taylok. 
— ®. — 

THE ALPINE SHEEP. 
They in the valley's sheltering care. 

Soon crop the meadow's tender prime, 
And when the sod grows brown and bare, 

The shepherd strives to make them climb 

To airy shelves of pastures green 

That hang along the mountain's side, 

Where grass and flowers together lean, 

And down through mists the sunbeams slide : 

But nought can tempt the timid things 
The steep and rugged paths to try, 

Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings, 
And seared below the pastures lie, — 

Till in his arms their lambs he takes 

Along the dizzy verge to go, 
Then heedless of the rifts and breaks 

They follow on o'er rock and snow. 

And in those pastures lifted fair, 

More dewy soft than lowland mead, 

The shepherd drops his tender care, 
And sheep and lambs together feed. 

Mahia Lowell. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 227 

LITTLE LAMB. 
Little lamb, who made thee ? 
Dost thou know who made thee ? 
Gave thee life and made thee feed 
By the stream and o'er the mead ; 
Gave thee clothing of delight, — 
Softest clothing, woolly, bright? 
Gave thee such a tender voice, 
Making all the vales rejoice ; 
Little lamb, who made thee ? 
Dost thou know who made thee ? 

Little lamb, I '11 tell thee ; 

Little lamb, I '11 tell thee ; 

He is callen by thy name, 

For he calls himself a lamb. 

He is meek, and He is mild ; 

He became a little child. 

I a child, and thou a lamb, 

We are called by His name. 

Little lamb, God bless thee ! 

Little lamb, God bless thee ! 

William Blake. 



COWPEK'S HARE. 
Well — one at least is safe. One sheltered hare 
Has never heard the sanguinary yell 
Of cruel man, exulting in her woes. 
Innocent partner of my peaceful home, 
Whom ten long years' experience of my care 
Has made at last familiar, she has lost 
Much of her vigilant instinctive dread, 



228 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine. 

Yes — thou mayst eat thy bread, and lick the hand 

That feeds thee ; thou mayst frolic on the floor 

At evening, and at night retire secure 

To thy straw-couch, and slumber unalarmed ; 

For I have gained thy confidence, have pledged 

All that is human in me to protect 

Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love. 

If I survive thee I will dig thy grave, 

And when I place thee in it, sighing say, 

I knew at least one hare that had a friend. 

Cowpee. 



TURN THY HASTY FOOT ASIDE. 
Turn, turn thy hasty foot aside, 

Nor crush that helpless worm ! 
The frame thy wayward looks deride 

Required a God to form. 

The common lord of all that move, 
From whom thy being flowed, 

A portion of his boundless love 
On that poor worm bestowed. 

Let them enjoy their little day, 
Their humble bliss receive ; 

Oh ! do not lightly take away 
The life thou canst not give ! 



T. Gisborne. 



THE WORM TURNS. 
I 've despised you, old worm, for I think you '11 admit 
That you never were beautiful even in youth ; 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 229 

I 've impaled you on hooks, and not felt it a bit ; 

But all 's changed now that Darwin has told us the 
truth 
Of your diligent life, and endowed you with fame : 

You begin to inspire me with kindly regard. 
I have friends of my own, clever worm, I could name, 
Who have ne'er in their lives been at work half so 
hard. 

It appears that we owe you our acres of soil, 

That the garden could never exist without you, 
That from ages gone by you were patient in toil, 

Till a Darwin revealed all the good that you do. 
Now you 've turned with a vengeance, and all must con- 
fess 

Your behavior should make poor humanity squirm ; 
For there 's many a man on this planet, I guess, 

Who is not half so useful as you, Mister worm. 

Punch. 



GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. 
Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, 
Catching your heart up at the feet of June, 
Sole voice that 's heard amidst the lazy noon, 
Whenever the bees lag at the summoning brass ; 
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class 
With those who think the candles come too soon, 
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune 
Nicks the glad silent moments as they pass. 

O sweet and tidy cousins, that belong 
One to the fields, the other to the hearth, 
Both have your sunshine : both, though small, are 
strong 



230 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

At your clear hearts ; and both seem given to earth 
To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song — ■ 
Indoors and out, summer and winter, Mirth. 

Leigh Hunt. 
— t — 

THE HONEY-BEES. 
Therefore doth Heaven divide 
The state of man in divers functions, 
Setting endeavor in continual motion ; 
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, 
Obedience : for so work the honey-bees ; 
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach 
The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 
They have a king and officers of sorts : 
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home ; 
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, 
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ; 
Which pillage they with merry march bring home 
To the tent royal of their emperor : 
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 
The singing masons building roofs of gold ; 
The civil citizens kneading up the honey ; 
The poor mechanic porters crowding in 
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate ; 
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, 
Delivering o'er to the executioner's pale 
The lazy, yawning drone. 

Shakespeare : Henry V., Act 1, Sc. 2. 



CUNNING BEE. 
Said a little wandering maiden 
To a bee with honey laden, 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 231 

" Bee, at all the flowers yon work, 
Yet in some does poison lurk." 

" That I know, my little maiden," 
Said the bee with honey laden ; 
" But the poison I forsake, 
And the honey only take." 

" Cunning bee with honey laden, 

That is right," replied the maiden ; 

" So will I, from all I meet, 

Only draw the good and sweet." Anon. 



/ AN INSECT. 
Only an insect ; yet I know 
It felt the sunlight's golden glow, 
And the sweet morning made it glad 
With all the little heart it had. 

It saw the shadows move ; it knew 
The grass-blades glittered, wet with dew 
And gayly o'er the ground it went ; 
It had its fulness of content. 

Some dainty morsel then it spied, 
And for the treasure turned aside ; 
Then, laden with its little spoil, 
Back to its nest began to toil. 

An insect formed of larger frame, 
Called man, along the pathway came. 
A ruthless foot aside he thrust, 
And ground the beetle in the dust. 



232 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Perchance no living being missed 
The life that there ceased to exist ; 
Perchance the passive creature knew 
No wrong, nor felt the deed undue ; 

Yet its small share of life was given 

By the same hand that orders heaven. 

'T was for no other power to say, 

Or should it go or should it stay. Anon. 



THE CHIPMUNK. 
I know an old couple that lived in a wood — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip ! 
And up in a tree-top their dwelling it stood — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip ! 
The summer it came, and the summer it went — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip! 
And there they lived on, and they never paid rent — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip! 

Their parlor was lined with the softest of wool — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip ! 
Their kitchen was warm, and their pantry was full — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip ! 
And four little babies peeped out at the sky — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip ! 
You never saw darlings so pretty and shy — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip ! 

Now winter came on with its frost and its snow — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip ! 
They cared not a bit when they heard the wind blow — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip ! 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 233 

For, wrapped in their furs, they all lay down to sleep — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip ! 
But oh, in the spring, how their bright eyes will peep — 

Chipperee, chipperee, chip ! Unknown. 



MOUNTAIN AND SQUIRREL. 
The mountain and the squirrel 
Had a quarrel ; 

And the former called the latter " Little Prig.' 
Bun replied, 

" You are doubtless very big ; 
But all sorts of things and weather 
Must be taken in together 
To make up a year 
And a sphere ; 
And I think it no disgrace 
To occupy my place. 
If I 'm not so large as you, 
You are not so small as I, 
And not half so spry. 
I '11 not deny you make 
A very pretty squirrel track. 
Talents differ ; all is well and wisely put ; 
If I cannot carry forests on my back, 
Neither can you crack a nut." 

Emerson. 

♦ - 

TO A FIELD-MOUSE. 
Wee sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, 
Oh, what a panic 's in thy breastie ! 
Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 
Wi' bickering brattle ! 



234 VOICES FOR THE- SPEECHLESS. 

I wad be laith to rin and chase thee 
Wi' murd'ring pattle ! 

I 'm truly soriy man's dominion 
Has broken nature's social union, 
And justifies that ill opinion 

Which makes thee startle 
At me, thy poor earth-born companion 

And fellow-mortal ! 

Thou saw the fields lay bare and waste 
And weary winter comin' fast, 
And cozie here, beneath the blast, 

Thou thought to dwell, 
Till, crash ! the cruel coulter past 

Out thro' thy cell. 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane * 
In proving foresight may be bain : 
The best laid schemes o' mice and men 

Gang aft a-gley, 
And lea'e us nought but grief and vain, 

For promised joy. 



Burns. 



A SEA-SHELL. 
See what a lovely shell, 

Small and pure as a pearl, 
Lying close to my foot. 

Frail, but a work divine, 
Made so fairily well 

With delicate spire and whorl. 
1 Not alone. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 235 

How exquisitely minute 
A miracle of design ! 



The tiny cell is forlorn, 

Void of the little living will 
That made it stir on the shore. 

Did he stand at the diamond door 
Of his house in a rainbow frill ? 

Did he push when he was uncurled, 
A golden foot or a fairy horn 

Through his dim water-world ? 

Slight, to be crushed with a tap 

Of my finger-nail on the sand ; 
Small, but a work divine : 

Frail, but of force to withstand, 
Year upon year, the shock 

Of cataract seas that snap 
The three-decker's oaken spine, 

Athwart the ledges of rock, 
Here on the Breton strand. 

Alfred Tennyson. 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that flings 

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 

In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare, 
"Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming 
hair. 



236 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed 1 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 

Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft steps its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no 



Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 

Child of the wandering sea, 

Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 

While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that 
sings : — 

" Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven within a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unwresting sea ! " 

O. W. Holmes. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 237 



HIAWATHA'S BROTHERS. 
When he heard the owls at midnight, 
Hooting, laughing in the forest, 
" What is that ? " he cried in terror ; 
" What is that ? " he said, " Nokomis ? " 
And the good Nokomis answered : 
" That is but the owl and owlet, 
Talking in their native language, 
Talking, scolding at each other." 

Then the little Hiawatha 
Learned of every bird its language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets, 
How they built their nests in Summer, 
Where they hid themselves in Winter, 
Talked with them whene'er he met them, 
Called them " Hiawatha's Chickens." 

Of all beasts he learned the language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets, 
How the beavers built their lodges, 
Where the squirrels hid their acorns, 
How the reindeer ran so swiftly, 
Why the rabbit was so timid, 
Talked with them whene'er he met them, 
Called them " Hiawatha's Brothers." 

Then Iagoo, the great boaster, 
He the marvellous story-teller, 
He the traveller and the talker, 
He the friend of old Nokomis, 
Made a bow for Hiawatha ; 
From a branch of ash he made it, 
From an oak-bough made the arrows, 
Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, 
And the cord he made of deer-skin. 



238 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

Then he said to Hiawatha : 
" Go, my son, into the forest, 
Where the red deer herd together, 
Kill for us a famous roebuck, 
Kill for us a deer with antlers ! " 

Forth into the forest straightway- 
All alone walked Hiawatha 
Proudly, with his bow and arrows ; 
And the birds sang round him, o'er him, 
" Do not shoot us, Hiawatha ! " 
Sang the robin, the Opechee, 
Sang the bluebird, the Owaissa, 
" Do not shoot us, Hiawatha ! " 

Up the oak-tree, close beside him, 
Sprang the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
In and out among the branches, 
Coughed and chattered from the oak-tree, 
Laughed, and said between his laughing, 
" Do not shoot me, Hiawatha ! " 

And the rabbit from his pathway 
Leaped aside, and at a distance 
Sat erect upon his haunches, 
Half in fear and half in frolic, 
Saying to the little hunter, 
" Do not shoot me, Hiawatha ! " 

But he heeded not, nor heard them, 
For his thoughts were with the red deer ; 
On their tracks his eyes were fastened, 
Leading downward to the river, 
To the ford across the river, 
And as one in slumber walked he." 

H. W. Longfellow : Hiawatha. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 239 

UNOFFENDING CREATURES. 
The Being that is in the clouds and air, 
That is in the green leaves among the groves, 
Maintains a deep and reverential care 
For the unoffending creatures whom he loves. 

One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide, 

Taught both by what He shows, and what conceals, 

Never to blend our pleasure or our pride 

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels. 

Wordsworth. 



SEPTEMBER. 

And sooth to say, yon vocal grove 
Albeit uninspired by love, 
By love untaught to ring, 
May well afford to mortal ear 
An impulse more profoundly dear 
Than music of the spring. 

But list ! though winter storms be nigh 

Unchecked is that soft harmony : 

There lives Who can provide, 

For all his creatures : and in Him, 

Even like the radiant Seraphim, 

These choristers confide. Wordsworth. 



THE LARK. 
Happy, happy liver, 
With a soul as strong as a mountain river, 
Pouring out praises to the Almighty Giver. 

Wordsworth. 



240 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

THE SWALLOW. 
When weary, weary winter 

Hath melted into air, 
And April leaf and blossom 

Hath clothed the branches bare, 
Came round our English dwelling 

A voice of summer cheer : 
'T was thine, returning swallow, 

The welcome and the dear. 

Far on the billowy ocean 

A thousand leagues are we, 
Yet here, sad hovering o'er our bark, 

What is it that we see ? 
Dear old familiar swallow, 

What gladness dost thou bring : 
Here rest upon our flowing sail 

Thy weary, wandering wing. 

Mrs. Howitt. 



RETURNING BIRDS. 
Birds, joyous birds of the wandering wing 
Whence is it ye come with the flowers of spring ? 
" We come from the shores of the green old Nile, 
From the land where the roses of Sharon smile, 
From the palms that wave through the Indian sky, 
From the myrrh trees of glowing Araby." 

Mrs. Hemans. 



THE BIRDS. 
With elegies of love 
Make vocal every spray. 

Cunningham. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 241 

THRUSH. 
Whither hath the wood thrush flown 

From our greenwood bowers ? 
Wherefore builds he not again 

Where the wild thorn flowers ? 

Bid him come ! for on his wings 

The sunny year he bringeth, 

And the heart unlocks its springs 

Wheresoe'er he singeth. 

Barry Cornwall. 

LINNET. 
Within the bush her covert nest 

A little linnet fondly prest, 
The dew sat chilly on her breast 

Sae early in the morning. 

She soon shall see her tender brood 
The pride, the pleasure o' the wood, 

Among the fresh green leaves bedewed, 
Awake the early morning. Burns. 



NIGHTINGALE. 
But thee no wintry skies can harm 

Who only needs to sing 
To make even January charm 

And every season Spring. Cowper. 



SONGSTERS. 
Little feathered songsters of the air 
In woodlands tuneful woo and fondly pair. 
16 Savage. 



242 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

MOHAMMEDANISM. 
THE CATTLE. 1 

The " Chapter of the Cattle : " Heaven is whose, 
And whose is earth ? Say Allah's, That did choose 

On His own might to lay the law of mercy. 
He, at the Resurrection, will not lose 

One of His own. What falleth, night or day, 
Falleth by His Almighty word alway. 

Wilt thou have any other Lord than Allah, 
Who is not fed, but f eedeth all flesh ? Say ! 

For if He visit thee with woe, none makes 
The woe to cease save He ; and if He takes 

Pleasure to send thee pleasure, He is Master 
Over all gifts ; nor doth His thought forsake 

The creatures of the field, nor fowls that fly ; 
They are "a people " also : " These, too, I 

Have set," the Lord saith, " in My book of record ; 
These shall be gathered to Me by and by." 

With Him of all things secret are the keys ; 
None other hath them, but He hath ; and sees 

Whatever is in land, or air, or water, 
Each bloom that blows, each foam-bell on the seas. 
E. Arnold : Pearls of the Faith. 



I cannot believe that any creature was created for 
uncompensated misery ; it would be contrary to God's 
mercy and justice. Mary Somerville. 

1 Koran, chap, vi 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 243 

THE SPIDER AND THE DOVE. 
The spider and the dove, — what thing is weak 
If Allah makes it strong ? 
The spider and the dove ! if He protect, 
Fear thou not foeman's wrong. 

From Mecca to Medina fled our Lord, 
The horsemen followed fast ; 
Into a cave to shun their murderous rage, 
Mohammed, weary, passed. 

Quoth Aba Bekr, " If they see me die ! " 
Quoth Eba Foheir, " Away ! " 
The guide Abdallah said, " The sand is deep, 
Those footmarks will betray." 

Then spake our Lord " We are not four but Five ; 
He who protects is here. 

1 Come ! Al-Muhaimin ' now will blind their eyes ; 
Enter, and have no fear." 

The band drew nigh ; one of the Koreish cried, 
" Search ye out yonder cleft, 
I see the print of sandalled feet which turn 
Thither, upon the left ! " 

But when they drew unto the cavern's mouth, 
Lo, at its entering in, 

A ring-necked desert-dove sat on her eggs ; 
The mate cooed soft within. 

And right athwart the shadow of the cave 
A spider's web was spread ; 



244 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

The creature hung upon her web at watch ; 
Unbroken was each thread ; 

" By Thammuz' blood," the unbelievers cried, 
" Our toil and time are lost ; 

Where doves hatch, and the spider spins her snare, 
No foot of man hath crossed ! " 

Thus did a desert bird and spider guard 

The blessed Prophet then ; 

For all things serve their maker and their God 

Better than thankless men. Pearls of the Faith. 



THE YOUNG DOVES. 
There came before our Lord a certain one 
Who said, " O Prophet ! as I passed the wood 
I heard the voice of youngling doves which cried, 
While near the nest their pearl-necked mother cooed. 

" Then in my cloth I tied those fledglings twain, 
But all the way the mother fluttered nigh ; 
See ! she hath followed hither." Spake our Lord : 
" Open thy knotted cloth, and stand thou by." 

But when she spied her nestlings, from the palm 
Down flew the dove, of peril unafeared, 
So she might succor these. " Seest thou not," 
Our Lord said, " how the heart of this poor bird 

" Grows by her love, greater than his who rides 
Full-face against the spear-blades ? Thinkest thou 
Such fire divine was kindled to be quenched ? 
I tell ye nay ! Put back upon the bough 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 245 

" The nest she claimeth thus : I tell ye nay ! 
From Allah's self cometh this wondrous love : 
Yea ! And I swear by Him who sent me here, 
He is more tender than a nursing dove, 

" More pitiful to men than she to these. 
Therefore fear God in whatsoe'er ye deal 
With the dumb peoples of the wing and hoof." 

Pearls of the Faith. 



FORGIVEN-. 
Verily there are rewards for our doing good to dumb 
animals, and giving them water to drink. A wicked 
woman was forgiven who, seeing a dog at a well holding 
out his tongue from thirst, which was near killing him, 
took off her boot, and tied it to the end of her garment, 
and drew water in it for the dog, and gave him to drink ; 
and she was forgiven her sin for that act. 

Table Talk of Mohammed. 



PRAYERS. 

It is recorded of the Prophet, that when, being on a 
journey, he alighted at any place, he did not say his 
prayers until he had unsaddled his camel. 

Poole's Mohammed. 



DUMB MOUTHS. 
By these dumb mouths be ye forgiven, 
Ere ye are heard pleading with heaven. 

Pearls of the Faith. 



246 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 



THE PARSEES. 
FROM THE ZEND AVESTA. 

Of all and every kind of sin which I have commit- 
ted against the creatures of Ormazd, as stars, moon, 
sun, and the red-burning fire, the Dog, the Birds, the 
other good creatures which are the property of Ormazd, 
if I have become a sinner against any of these, I repent. 



" If a man gives bad food to a shepherd Dog, of 
what sin is he guilty ? " 

Ahura Mazda - 1 answered : 

" It is the same guilt as though he should serve bad 
food to a master of a house of the first rank.''' 



" The dog, I, Ahura Mazda, have made self-clothed 
and self-shod, watchful, wakeful, and sharp-toothed, 
born to take his food from man and to watch over man's 
goods. 

I, Ahura Mazda, have made the dog strong of body 
against the evil-doer and watchful over your goods, 
when he is of sound mind. 



HINDOO. 
He who, seeking his own happiness, does not punish 
or kill beings who also long for happiness, will find hap- 
piness after death. Dhammapada. 

Whoever in this world harms living beings, and in 
whom there is no compassion for living beings, let one 
know him as an outcast. Sutta Nipata. 

1 Ahura Mazda or Ormazd is the King of Light ; the Good. 
The Zend Avesta is of great hut uncertain antiquity ; believed to 
be three thousand years old. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 247 



THE TIGER. 
Tiger, tiger, burning bright 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry ? 

In what distant deeps or skies 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes ? 
On what wings dare he aspire ? 
What the hand dare seize the fire ? 

And what shoulder and what art 
Could twist the sinews of thy heart ? 
And, when thy heart began to beat, 
What dread hand forged thy dread feet ? 

What the hammer ? what the chain ? 
In what furnace was thy brain ? 
What the anvil ? What dread grasp 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp ? 

When the stars threw down their spears, 
And watered heaven with their tears, 
Did He smile his work to see ? 
Did He who made the lamb make thee ? 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry ? 

William Blake. 



248 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

VALUE OF ANIMALS. 

Nobody doubts their general value, as nobody doubts 
the value of sunlight ; but a more practical appreciation 
may be felt of their moneyed value if we look at that 
aspect of the question in some of its details. 

We quote from a hand-book published for the South 
Kensington Museum : — 

" Class I. — Animal Substa7ices employed for Tex- 
tile Manufactures and Clothing. Division I. Wool, 
Mohair, and Alpaca. Division II. Hair, Bristles, and 
Whalebone. Division III. Silk. Division IV. Furs. 
Division V. Feathers, Down, and Quills. Division VI. 
Gelatin, Skins, and Leathers. 

" Class II. — Animal Substances used for Domes- 
tic and Ornamental Purposes. Division I. Bone and 
Ivory. Division II. Horns and Hoofs. Division III. 
Tortoise-shell. Division IV. Shells and Marines. An- 
imal Products for Manufacture, Ornaments, etc. Divi- 
sion V. Animal Oils and Fats. 

" Class III. — Pigments and Dyes yielded by Ani- 
mals."" — Division I. Cochineal and Kermes. Division 
II. Lac and its applications. Division III. Nutgalls, 
Gall Dyes, Blood, etc. Division IV. Sepia, Tyrian 
Purple, Purree, etc. 

" Class IV. — Animal Substances used in Pharmacy 
and in Perfumery." Division I. Musk, Civet, Cas- 
torem, Hyraceum, and Ambergris. Division II. Can- 
tharides, Leeches, etc. 

" Class V. — Application of Waste Matters. Di- 
vision I. Entrails and Bladders. Division II. Albu- 
men, Casein, etc. Division III. Prussiates of Potash 
and Chemical Products of Bone, etc. Division IV. 



VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 249 

Animal Manures — Guano, Coprolites, Animal Carcases, 
Bones, Fish Manures, etc." 

From a table of the value of imports of animal origin 
brought into the United Kingdom in the year 1875, we 
take a few items : — 

"Live animals, £8,466,226. "Wool of various kinds, 
£23,451,887. Silk, manufactures of all kinds, £12,264,- 
532. Silk, raw and thrown, £3,546,456. Butter, £8,- 
502,084. Cheese, £4,709,508. Eggs, £2,559,860. 
Bacon and hams, £6,982,470. Hair of various kinds, 
£1,483,984. Hides, wet and dry, £4,203,371. Hides, 
tanned or otherwise prepared, £2,814,042. Guano, 
£1,293,436., Fish, cured or salted, £1,048,546." 

The value of the domestic stock in Great Britain and 
Channel Islands, in 1875, is stated to have been : — 

"Horses, 1,349,691 at £16, £21,587,056. Cattle, 
6,050,797 at £10, £60,507,970. Sheep, 29,243,790 at 
£1 10s., £43,865,685. Swine, 2,245,932 at £1 5s., 
£2,807,415. Total, £128,768,126." 

" When we find," says the compiler of the statistics 
from which we have quoted, " that the figures give an 
estimated money value exceeding £331,000,000 ster- 
ling, and that to this has to be added all the dairy prod- 
uce ; the poultry and their products for Great Britain ; 
the annual clip of British wool, which may be esti- 
mated at 160,000,000 lbs., worth at least £8,000,000 ; 
the hides and skins, tallow, horns, bones, and other 
offal, horse and cow hair, woollen rags collected, the 
game and rabbits, the sea and river fisheries ; besides 
the products of our woollen, leather, glove, silk, soap, and 
comb manufactures retained for home consumption, furs, 
brushes, and many other articles, we ought to add a 
great many millions more to the aggregate value or 
total." — Simmonds : Animal Products, p. xix. 



250 VOICES FOR THE SPEECHLESS. 

SOCIETIES FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY 
TO ANIMALS. _ 

The first society formed under this name, or for this 
object, was the " Royal," of London, in 1825. 

The first in America was that of New York, in 1866 ; 
that of Pennsylvania, in 1867 : and that of Massachu- 
setts, in 1868. 

They all sprang from the same Christian root with 
the other great voluntary organizations for religious and 
moral purposes which distinguished the century just 
passed. All helped to widen the consciousness of the 
world, and to prepare the way for reformations not then 
thought of. 

In this goodly company of voluntary societies, those 
for the Protection of Animals are entitled to an honor- 
able place. It is not too much to say that any list would 
be incomplete without them. 

But they have gone beyond Europe and America, and 
are spreading over the world. Among their devoted 
members are found the professors of many religions. 

These " Voices," it is hoped, may impel their readers, 
wherever they may be, to help on, through such So- 
cieties, a long delayed work of justice to the humbler 
creatures of God. In many countries the young may 
find juvenile societies to promote the cause in schools 
and neighborhoods. 

But whether inside or outside of organizations, the 
words of Mr. Longfellow suggest a universal duty, — 

" Act, act in the living present, 
Hearts within and God o'erhead." 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TITLES. 



PAGE 

Achilles, Horses of 86 

Action 55 

Ahura-Mazda 246 

Aix, Good News to 82 

Alexander 50 

Allah 64,242-245 

Among the Noblest 62 

Ancient Mariner 13 

Animals and Human Speech . . 32 

Animals, Feeling for 45 

Animals, Happiness 27 

Animals, Innocent 50 

Animals, Products 248 

Animals, Suffering 35 

Another's Sorrow 175 

Arabs 33, 64, 65 

Argus and Ulysses 188 

Aspiration 46 

Asoka Inscriptions 37 

Atri in Abruzzo 58 

Aziola 138 

Baby, Human 22 

Bavieca 67 

Bay Billy .74 

Beaver . . . . • 21 

Bedouin's Rebuke 72 

Bees, The . . . . 21, 117, 176, 230 

Beetle 47 

Beggar and Dog 202 

Be Kind 54 

Bess, Poor ........ 71 

Bible ix, x, xi 

Bird and Ship 181 

Bird King 182 

Bird, Lost 178 

Bird of the Wilderness . . . .106 
Birds .... 91-184, 239, 240, 241 
Birds and Mohammed . . 243, 244 

Birds at Dawn 162 

Bird's Evening Song 164 

Birds in Spring 167 

Birds Learning to Fly .... 120 

Birds Let Loose 135 

Bird's Ministry 165 

Birds Must Know 180 

Birds, Our Teachers 167 

Birds Returning 240 



PAGE 

Birds, Shadows of 181 

Birthday Address 40 

Birth of the Horse 64 

Blanco 201 

Bloodhound 192 

Bluebird 95, 163 

Bob-o'-link 139, 173 

Bride 115 

Brotherhood 30, 39, 103 

Buddhism 36, 37 

Butrago, Lord of 73 

Cage 108, 109, 169 

Canary 169 

Can they Suffer ? 218 

Cat 86, 223, 224, 225 

Care for the Lowest 23 

Chick-a-dee-dee 144 

Child, Lydia Maria 41 

Chipmunk 232 

Choir, Hymeneal 105 

Choir, Invisible 46 

Cid and Bavieca 67 

Cock's Shrill Clarion . . 113, 133, 163 

Compassion 20 

Concord 79 

Cormorant 177 

Crane 21 

Cricket 229 

Crow 97, 163 

Cruelty, Effect of, on Man ... 46 
Cuckoo 162 

Damascus 66 

Darwin, Charles 45 

Delft 153,192 

Dog . . . 17, 19, 30, 85, 185-219, 284 

Dog "Blanco" 201 

Dog "Don" 204 

Dog "Flight" 215 

Dogs, Dead 198 

Dogs, Domestic 185 

Dogs, Epitaph on ... . 210, 211 
Dogs " Faithful" . . .212,218,219 

Dog's Grave 86, 210, 211 

Doves . . . 140, 142, 143, 243, 244 

Do with your Own 61 

Do you Know ? 71 



252 INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TITLES. 



PAGE 

Drudge 33 

Ducks 92 

Dumb 22, 30 

Dumb Mouths 245 

Duty 20 

Duty and Fame 52 

Dying in Harness 84 

Eagle 112 

Eggs 171 

Egyptian Ritual 39 

Elegy 133 

Elephants 16 

Emperor's Bird's-Nest .... 130 

Epitaph 210, 211 

Erskine, Lord 21 

Exulting Sings 57 

Failures 29 

Fame and Duty 52 

Feathered Tribes 112 

Feeling for Animals 45 

Field Sparrow 125 

Fire -190 

Firmness and Faithfulness ... 56 

Foray, The 90 

Freedom to Beasts 84 

Friend of every Friendless Beast 62 

Friends 23 

Future, The 47 

Gamarra 66 

Geist's Grave 206 

Gelert 195 

Generosity 20 

Gentleness 49 

Giant's Strength 49 

Glow-Worm 102 

God's Children 92 

Good News to Aix 82 

Good Samaritan 43 

Goodwill 36 

Grasshoppers 94, 229 

Graves, Collins, Ride of .... 77 

Grey Friars' Bobby 211 

Growth of Humane Ideas . . 19, 42 
Gulls 92 

Happiness of Animals .... 27 

Hare 227 

Harness, Dying in 83 

Harper, The 214 

Heart Service 56 

Helvellyn 194 

Hen and Honey Bee 117 

Herbert, George G3 

Herod, my Hound 192 

Heroes 45, 50 

Herons of Elmwood 155 

Hiawatha's Brothers 237 

Hill-Star's Nest 21 

Hippopotamus 33 



PAGB 

Honor and Revere 62 

Horse. See Rides. 

Horse . . .16, 19, 20, 22, 27, 58-90 

Horse, Birth of 64 

Horse, Blood 66 

Horse, Fallen 62 

Horse of Achilles 86 

Horse Waiting for Master ... 90 

Horse, War 87 

Hound 66 

Howard, John 19 

Hindoo Poem 185 

Hindooism 38 

Humanity 29, 85 

Humming-Bird 114, 115 

Hundred Farms 243 

Hymns 13, 24, 26, 46, 47, 49, 52, 54, 55, 
56, 57, 106, 135, 237 

Immortality 210 

India 37 

Indian 218 

In Holy Books 57 

Inscriptions 37 

Insect 231 

Instinct 34 

Introduction ix 

Irish Wolf-Hound 216 

Jay 94 

June Day 159 

Justice 17, 20 

Killingworth, Birds of ... . 94-99 

Kindness 42, 52 

Kindness to Aged Creatures . 17, 137 
King of Denmark's Ride ... 69 
Kites 27 

L' Allegro 100 

Lamb 227 

Lark 63 

Lark (Sky) 57, 94, 100, 102, 108, 111, 
163, 239 

Lark (Wood) 109 

Leaders 53 

Learn from the Creatures ... 34 

Legend of Cross-Bill 158 

Lexington 79 

Life is Glad 125 

Lincoln, Robert of 139 

Linnet 145, 146, 163, 241 

Little Brown Bird 164 

Little by Little 31 

Living Swan 159 

Llewellyn and Gelert 195 

Looking for Pearls 198 

Lord of Butrago 73 

Lost 122,178 

Love ... 28, 36, 44, 56, 165, 240, 

241 

Loyalty 32 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TITLES. 253 



PAGE 

Magpie 99 

Man's Morality on Trial .... 14 

Man's Rule 30 

Man's Supremacy 16 

Marriage Feast 13 

Martin 139 

Mausoleum 192 

Measureless Gulfs 55 

Mercy 15, 42, 43, 173 

Misery 242 

Monkey 45 

Moral Lessons ....... 19 

Mother's Care 20 

Mountain and Squirrel .... 232 

Mouse, A Field 233 

Myth 1S4 

Nautilus 235 

Natural Rights 21 

Nature, Animated 27 

Nature's Teachings 70 

Nest 170,171,174 

Newfoundland Dog 211 

Newsboy 224 

Nightingale .... Ill, 113, 241 

Nobility 42, 173 

No Ceremony 53 

No Grain of Sand 28 

Non-interference 44 

Not born for Death Ill 

Not Contempt 31 

Nothing Alone 29 

Odyssey 188 

Old Mill 33 

Old Spaniel 210 

One Hundred Years Ago ... 42 

Open Sky 70 

Oriole 94, 1G3 

Our Pets 38 

Owl ........ 27, 133, 138 

Ox 19 

Pain to Animals 35 

Papers 224 

Parrots 147, 148, 149 

Parsees 246 

Peacock 113 

Peepul Tree 166 

Pegasus in Pound 87 

Persevere 47, 130 

Petrel, Stormy 21, 160 

Pets, Our 38 

Pheasant 154 

Phoebe 150 

Piccola 127 

Pity 33 

Plutarch 85 

Poor Dog Tray 214 

Prayers ..... 13, 14, 46, 245 

Pretty Birds 158 

Pussy 225 



PAGE 

Quail 143 

Questions 49 

Quit the Nest 120 

Reason 18, 34 

Returning Birds 240 

Ride of Collins Graves .... 77 
Ride of King of Denmark ... 69 

Ride of Paul Revere 78 

Ride of Sheridan 80 

Ride of " The Colonel " . . . . 74 

RidetoAix 82 

Rights Must Win 26 

Rights, Natural 21 

Ring Out 52 

Robins . . . .94, 118-120, 122, 123 

Roland .... 83 

Rooks 27 

Room Enough 217 

Rover 199 

Sake of the Animals 50 

Sand, No Grain of 28 

Sandpiper 93 

Scarecrow 123 

Sea-Fowl 92 

Sea Shell 234 

September 239 

Shadows of Birds 181 

Shaftesbury, Earl of 40 

Shag 177 

Sheep 226 

Shepherd's Home 176 

She- Wolf 30 

Ship of Pearl 235 

Siddartha 160 

Sin 246 

Six Feet 216 

Skylark 104-108 

Societies for Protection of Animals, 250 

Solitude 29 

Songs 54 

Sorrow 175 

Sounds and Songs .... 102-241 

Sparrow, . 93, 94, 102, 124-127, 129, 

163 

Spider 219, 221, 243 

Squirrel 232, 233 

Statue over the Cathedral Door . 134 

St. Francis 102 

Stole the Eggs 171 

Stole the Nest ....... 170 

Stork . . . .21, 112, 152, 153, 221 

Study of Animals 31 

Suffer, Can they? 18 

Suffering 41,18 

Sultan G5 

Swallow . . 129, 130, 132, 133, 240 

Swan 113, 159 

Sympathy 15, 20 

Tame Animals 52 



254 INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TITLES. 



PAGE 

Teeth of Dog 198 

Tenderness 37, 87 

Te whit, te who 170 

Texts. See Bible. 

Thrush 94,136,137,241 

Tiger 247 

Tiger Moth 21 

Tom 190 

Tramp 212 

Trotwood, Betsy 14 

Troubadour 155 

Trust 24 

Truth 38 

Ulysses 188 

Upward .' . 23 

Value of Animals to Man . . . 247 

Venice, Doves of 142 | 

Village Sounds 36 | 

Vireos 103 j 

Virtue 31 I 

Vision 48 

Vivisection 41 j 

Vogelweid, Walter von der . . 163 j 



PAGE 

Waiting for Master 90 

War-Horse 74 

Waterfowl 91 

Way to Sing 180 

Wedding Guest 13 

Wedding, The Fairy 115 

What the Birds Say 179 

Whippoorwill 164 

Who Stole the Bird's Eggs? . .171 
Who Stole the Bird's Nest ? . . 170 

Who Taught? 221 

William of Orange 191 

Williamsburg 77 

Winchester 80 

Wish, A 113 

Wolf 30 

Wolf-Hound 216 

Wood Lark 109 

Wood Pigeons 176, 177 

Workman of God 26 

Worm 23, 24, 102, 228 

Worm Turns, The 229 

Wren 107,174 

Yudhistthira 183 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



PAGE 

Akenside, Mark 23 

Alger's Oriental Poetry . . 181, 185 

Amicis, de E 153, 192 

Andros, R. S 129 

Anonymous. See Unknown. 

Aristotle 31 

Arnold, Edwin . 159, 242, 243, 244, 245 
Arnold, Matthew ... 53, 76, 206 
Asoka, Emperor 37 

Barbauld, Mrs 47 

Bates, Mrs. CD 143 

Bentham, Jeremy 18 

Berry, Mrs. C. F. . 120, 122, 144, 171 

Bible ix, x, xi 

Blaikie, Professor .... 30, 211 
Blake, William . . 107, 175, 227, 247 

Blanchard, Laman • . 28 

Bostwick, Helen B 71 

Bremer, Frederika 143 

Brine, Mary D 212 

Brooks, Rev. C. T 202 

Brougham, John 219 

Browning, Mrs. E. B 140 

Browning, Robert 82 

Bryant, W. C. . . . 70, 91, 139, 178 

Buddhism 36, 37 

Burns, Robert 223, 247 

Butler, Bishop 14 

Byron, Lord ........ 211 

Caird, Rev. Dr 47 

Californian 114 

Campbell, Thomas .... 147, 214 
Carlyle, Mrs. Thomas .... 132 

Carpenter, Rev. H. B 53 

Carpenter, Rev. J. E 39 

Chambers's Journal 108 

Chamisso 202 

Child's Book of Poetry .... 126 
Cincinnati Humane Appeal . . 31 

Clayton, Sir Robert 87 

Clough, Arthur H 24, 38 

Cobbe, Miss F. P. . 14, 20, 40, 41, 45 

Coleridge, Hartley 58 

Coleridge, S. T 13 

Corbett, E. T 224 



PAGE 

Cornwall", Barry . 66, 129, 160, 192, 241 

Cowper, William . 23, 27, 28, 29, 33, 

102, 227, 241 

Craik, Mrs. Dinah M. . . 169, 174 

Cunningham, Allen 242 

Cuvier, Baron 185 

Davids, T. W. R 134 

Dickens, Charles 14 

Dryden, John 31 

Egyptian Ritual ...... 39 

Eliot, George 30, 46 

Emerson, R. W 102, 233 

Faber, F. W 26 

Fields, James T 199,204 

Gassaway, F. H 74 

Gisborne, Thomas 228 

Goethe 30 

Goldsmith, 56 

Gray 133 

H. H 180, 181 

Hathaway, E 45, 46 

Hedge, Rev. Dr. F. H. . . . 17, 19 

Helps, Arthur 22 

Hemans, Mrs 240 

Herbert, George 63 

Hindoo ..,«.. 36, 37, 38, 185, 246 

Hogg, James 106 

Holland, J. G .201 

Holmes, O. W 49, 92, 235 

Homer 189 

Howitt, Mary 240 

Humane Journal 217 

Hunt, Leigh 229 

Hymns for Mothers 170 

Ingelow, Jean 55 

Jackson, Mrs. See H. H. 

Job . . ". 64 

Johnson, Laura W 142 

Keats, John Ill 



256 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



PAGE 

Keble, J 165 

Kingsley, Charles 45, 184 

Lamb, Charles and Mary ... 49 

Langhorne, J 150 

Larcom, Lucy . . 119, 125, 136, 223 

Lathbury, Mary A 115 

Lawrence, Kate 35 

Lewes, Mrs. See George Elliot. 

Lockhart, J. G 67, 73 

Logan, John 162 

Longfellow, H. W. . . 53, 58, 78, 87, 

94, 99, 101, 103, 130, 134, 152, 

155, 156, 158, 182, 219, 221, 223, 

237 

Lord, Miss Emily B 13 

Lowell, James R. . . . 32, 150, 159 

Lowell, Maria 226 

Luther, Martin 167 

Mahabharata 185 

Mackenzie 19 

MacCarthy, Denis F. . . . Ill, 216 

Mason, Caroline A 173 

Masque of Poets 118 

McLeod, Norman 56 

Mill, Stuart John 35 

Milton, John 29, 102, 112 

Mohammed .... 242, 243, 244, 
245 

Moore, Thomas 135 

Motley, J. L 191 

Muller, Max 39 

Muloch. See Mrs. Dinah M. Craik. 

Norton, Mrs. C. E 69 

Odyssey 188 

O'Reilly, John Boyle . . . . 77, 84 

Paine, Miss Harriet E., 124, 137, 145, 
162, 164 

Parseeism 246 

Perry, Carolina Coronado de . . 178 

Pfeiffer, Emily 212 

Plutarch , 85 

Poole, Stanley 245 



PAGE 

Pope, Alex nder, 25, 29, 34, 154, 188, 
218, 221 
Preston, Margaret J. . . . 165, 167 
Procter. See Barry Cornwall. 
Punch 228 

Read, T. B 80 

Ruskin, John 15, 85 

Savage, Richard 241 

Saxe, John G 117 

Schiller 52 

Scott, Walter 90, 194 

Scudder, Eliza 41 

Shakespeare, W., 15, 47, 49, 53, 89, 139, 
173, 230 

Shelley, P. B 105, 138 

Shenstone, W 176 

Sheppard, Mary 38 

Simmonds 248 

Southey, Robert 210 

Spencer, W. R 195 

Stanley, A. P 16, 20, 42 

Sterling, John . . , 57 

Swing, David 44 

Taylor, Bayard 32, 64. 65 

Taylor, Emily 225 

Taylor, Henry 41 

Temple Bar 109 

Tennyson, Alfred . 24, 42, 52, 65, 234 
Thaxter, Mrs. Celia 93, 123, 127, 177 

Unknown, 31, 32, 43, 44, 49, 50, 54,72, 

90, 108, 114, 120, 158, 177, 215, 217, 

230, 231, 232 

Verplanck, Julia C 48 

Walton, Izaak 63 

Whittier, J. G 147, 148 

Wilcox 55, 190 

Wither, George 107 

Woolson, C. F. . . 190 

Wordsworth, W. . 104, 137, 146, 239 

Zend Avesta 246 



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